


your blood in cerulean

by kowloons (tokyosdaughter)



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pacific Rim Fusion, Childhood Friends to Lovers, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Mentions of Cancer, Movie: Pacific Rim (2013), Non-Linear Narrative, Parallels to Post-Timeskip Canon, Relationship Study, Sexual Content, with a mix of volleyball
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-28
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-12 06:49:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 26,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29755743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tokyosdaughter/pseuds/kowloons
Summary: Japanese Jaeger Sigma Cerulean stood alone in the middle of the Tokyo Bay, Kaiju carcass floating, pooling a neon blue from its bleeding torso. That was the image spread beneath all the international headlines for months—of two boys from Miyagi slaying a dragon.The apocalypse begins when Hajime sees red instead of blue in the Drift.
Relationships: Iwaizumi Hajime/Oikawa Tooru
Comments: 5
Kudos: 33





	your blood in cerulean

**Author's Note:**

> this fic is an accumulation of my undying love for two things: Iwaoi and the Pacific Rim universe. it's been a while since i unleashed the kaiju geek that i am, and i'm very happy to have finished this work. this might be a hefty read and full of technical terms, but i hope it's still enjoyable! mind the tags for trigger warnings. special thanks to k, who introduced me to hq.
> 
> this fic should be read with its accompaniment [phantom grief, steel hearts](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29760645), telling Kuroo & Tsukishima's story from the other Shatterdome. we did create a monster, h. this is for you.

The apocalypse begins when Hajime sees red instead of blue in the Drift.

It is never the Breach, for him, that serves as a reminder of their mortality. The rift at the bottom of the ocean was otherwise a kickstart towards an evolution, a new drive, a grand purpose. It launched him to Anchorage among hundreds of sweaty boys alongside his best friend. The Breach was a start. This vision, though, seems to be signaling an end.

He knows the Drift usually radiates a dim glow, a friendly beckoning to come forward and meld with its warm light, a welcoming home in his head. It is something that otherwise feels neon white or soft grey, not a startling crimson. It is definitely, most definitely, not a staggering Oikawa on the edges of his mind, staring him square in the face with blood dripping down his nostrils.

Oikawa starts to say something in their shared brainspace, drowned in shock and dawning realization. Hajime has Drifted too many times with him to know that panic floods between them like a tidal wave, a ringing bell, a merciless siren. Their usually strong and firm neural handshake quakes for a moment, just for a while, before they remember why they’re here.

Fast forward and back to reality, to the looming Category-III Kaiju Hayabusa in front of them, a killer copy of an aquatic dragon. It’s the middle of a chilly autumn night, early November 2019. They are twenty-five years old, wrapped in their pewter blue drivesuit in the East China Sea, off the coast of Miyazaki. The hundred-foot drop to the Northern Pacific. The steaming, roaring nuclear heart of their Jaeger.

Nosebleeds and bad hunches can wait another day. They have a beast to slay.

.

Hanamaki tells him that their bond spikes a bit during their drop. Hajime tells him it’s nothing.

As a neural bridge operator, Hanamaki is the one who watches each of their Drifts, observes every neural handshake, obliged to let them know how strong their bond is after every kill. The Marshal demands him to, anyway. Sigma Cerulean is one of the most stable Jaegers they have in Nagasaki, in all Japan, in the whole Northern Pacific strike groups even. That’s what you get when you put two people who know each other their whole lives inside a looming titanium monster.

That’s why the smallest spikes in their Drift flick on a switch that puts their crew on alert. Because they’re not supposed to happen.

“I won’t tell the Marshal,” it’s like Hanamaki reads his mind. His gaze flicks from Hajime’s hand massaging his own temple, to his fingers tapping an arrhythmia to the control room wall. It might be making an unnecessary fuss if Hanamaki does let this slip. Hajime forms the words again in his mind, willing it to come true. _It’s nothing._

I didn’t see Oikawa’s blood in the Drift, because it didn’t happen.

Hajime starts to say something like a thank you, but Hanamaki interjects carefully, “but I’m going to let Mattsun know because I’ll at least need another hand on deck if something does happen.”

Matsukawa, their J-Tech crew lead. Hanamaki’s superior. His and Oikawa’s crew for three years and seven—eight drops, now.

It’s nothing.

Hajime has the talent to say things convincingly, even when he’s not sure if they’re true. It’s the same formula for his whole life. _We can do this. Leave it to me, I’ll get it done. You got this, just do the same thing you always do._ Empty words running on shaky faith. Then he’ll drag himself through hell just to make sure it becomes a reality.

“Nothing will happen.”

And so, this time, it’s all too easy to simply lie.

.

The way he lies, he picks it up from Oikawa.

“How long has it been like this?”

Hajime should’ve known the excruciatingly nonchalant way Oikawa will answer. _How long has what been, Iwa-chan?_ Lying through his teeth. Lying with the curve of a smile. Lying, or more accurately, pretending as if he doesn’t know what’s been going on inside their own heads. Swerving around the question like slamming the wheels for a sharp U-turn.

They are both in their room shortly after the victory dinner. The Marshal had made a stern speech of pride in Nagasaki’s trusted champion. _Eight drops, eight kills. That’s if you count all the assists and take the win as your own._ Someone had passed around a flask, presumably Atsumu’s, and Oikawa had his glass filled to the brim with something too strong-smelling to be old-fashioned shochu. Oikawa, now replying with the exact same words in Hajime’s mind, is red-eared and slightly tipsy. Still sober enough to answer properly.

Oikawa lies and lies, drunk or sober. He doesn’t do it to stir trouble; he does it to get out of them. Most of the time, they’re lies about himself. Almost all the time, he lies to Hajime, which technically isn’t lying anyway since Hajime knows how to pull his truths apart like a spool of yarn. _Nope, I didn’t stay up late._ Yes, you didn’t sleep over-analyzing our last drop. _Yes, I only practiced for an hour last night._ No, the log showed you signed off after three. _Yes, I ate._ No, bread does not count.

“I really have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Ever since Hajime went in the Drift with him, not only did he learn to tell Oikawa’s lies apart; he learned to do the exact same thing, spill words and will them to come true. It comes as easy as breathing, and he understands why Oikawa does it as second nature. It’s better to evade questioning and solve problems by himself.

“This isn’t funny, you ass,” Hajime moves closer to Oikawa’s bed, the one on the right, where his copilot sits flipping idly through a magazine. Oikawa looks unfazed as Hajime continues, “I saw what I saw. I was in your fucking head.”

It’s too painful to repeat the memory. Mind melding with Oikawa has always felt like home, like a second place to rest his thoughts, a head to call his own. He knows all their memories, private or shared, by heart. Every tiny detail of their childhood home. Every emotional scar as they grow up. The past regrets. The shame buried grave-deep. There are no secrets in the Drift.

Oikawa has his mouth in a straight line, jaw set firmly, but the look he gives Hajime is a silent plea. _Don’t ask me. Please don’t ask me._

Hajime had seen a new memory, earlier. One that wasn’t there the last time they Drifted together, around two months ago. One where Oikawa doubles over a sink, hands cupping his face, and in the mirror lies a shadow of himself with red all over his jaw. The blood keeps dripping, and Oikawa keeps wiping them with a tissue, but it can only hold so much liquid since Oikawa is also crying. It won’t stop, _doesn’t_ stop, and when Oikawa noticed Hajime staring in the edges of his mind, he turned around, and the horror in the scene overpowered that of the Kaiju in front of their Jaeger.

The closer the bond, the harder the other mind tugs at yours when you are apart. Three long years Hajime has spent Drifting with Oikawa, not to count the other sixteen growing up together. He developed an appetite for milk bread just as Oikawa picks up his taste for agedashi tofu, shaves in the exact same ritual as the other every couple week, walks at the exact same pace along the Shatterdome halls.

Of the countless habits and tics they share, Hajime hates that cancer only gnaws at Oikawa’s insides, but not his as well.

.

During their fourth year of university, they both got it in their heads that they were going to enlist. It was four days after Oikawa turned twenty-one that the Pan Pacific Defense Corps started putting out recruitment broadcasts for the Jaeger Academy. It was July 2015. They caught it on social media, a slab of screaming propaganda. _WE NEED YOU TO JOIN THE FIGHT._ Oikawa in particular was moved to his bones.

“I’ve got to do it, Iwa _-chan_.”

They were in the student housing, inside Hajime’s own sweltering hot room with too little air. A laptop was open on the table, where Oikawa was watching a volleyball match re-run online before the advertisement flashed like a ribbon of red, blue, and white. Hajime only managed to catch the tail of the 15-second video, but the message was clear.

“The Academy thing? It’s all the way in Alaska. And you don’t even speak a lick of English.” Hajime always did a better job at that, since middle school. And yet he should have known that nothing could stop his best friend once he set his mind; not distance nor language.

“It’s a worldwide war, and they’re calling for people who want to fight,” there were stars in Oikawa’s eyes. The last time Hajime saw them, he ended up spiking all of Oikawa’s sets in straight hits all through their school days. “I can’t just stay still and let the world end like _that_.” He snapped his fingers. Stars exploded. A supernova.

They talked about it before, after the first attack in San Francisco two years ago, August 2013. That was when Hajime had shed his long-reigning _Gojira_ phone case (“It’s inappropriate now, don’t you think?”). Then again, two months ago, after they saw the very first Jaeger blast a missile off Karloff’s head in Vancouver. If Miyagi was hit, would it be better to be home with your family, or to be up there in a Jaeger or a Jumphawk fighter plane? Even when he was questioning Oikawa’s determination, he knew their answer would be the same. Then it wouldn’t be a matter of if they _would_ , but if they _could_.

It took a month to settle a discussion with both their families and an agreement was reached where they could enlist after graduation. Hajime chose to accept without negotiation. Oikawa, on the other hand, went off like a bomb.

“I really don’t see the point. I mean, why bother, right?”

Oikawa’s eyes were wide and frustrated, no stars. They were in his childhood bedroom in Miyagi, August 2015. That summer break, the discussion at Oikawa’s dinner table exploded into a full-blown mouth fight. His best friend had lost his temper, while Oikawa’s mother retorted with tears and ended up calling Hajime’s mother through the kitchen phone. Oikawa’s sister had yelled something about him being hotheaded and an inconsiderate asshole. Oikawa’s father, quiet at the head of the table, smoked the last of his cigarette in silence.

Hajime watched Oikawa as he paced back and forth, digging trenches in his carpeted floor, fuming with protest.

“The world is _ending,_ Iwa- _chan._ What are degrees worth by the time a Kaiju makes land? People won’t be needing—what, _accountants_ anymore,” his hands, all up in the air. Fingers raking through his hair. “And we’re not getting any younger, either. Even eighteen-year-olds are signing up, and we’re just sitting here wasting time.”

“It’s not wasting time,” Hajime had said, solemn on the edge of his bed. Oikawa had stared back at him in disbelief, saying more things like _but we’re fighting_ and _we need to get out of there as fast as we can_ and _we could get attacked at any time and we’d regret it if we don’t_ and Hajime suddenly had enough.

The next thing they knew was Hajime’s grip on Oikawa’s collar, that dingy old Kitagawa Daiichi shirt he kept since middle school, and him yelling loud in front of Oikawa’s shaken face.

“It’s not about the fucking degrees, Oikawa!”

The hard breathing, the thrumming heartbeats, the anger pumped through his veins creeping to his head. His grasp strengthening, fraying the material even more, while Oikawa quietly swallowed his words whole. _Just as much as you want to save the world, we can’t afford to be selfish. Do you really think we have the chance to come back in one piece and return every summer to Miyagi? We might as well be in a coffin. Don’t you see?_

It was about the time their family needed to let them go.

Oikawa apologized to his mother that night.

They didn’t talk about enlisting anymore until the end of their exams while cramming English lessons into an already deadly curriculum. They didn’t need to talk about it anymore, because they knew.

.

It’s exactly because they don’t talk about it that Hajime spends his days in a daze.

They have a bed each in the Nagasaki Shatterdome; twin-sized, next to each other and separated by a narrow steel platform on the wall that serves as a desk. It’s an upgrade from the Academy, where they sleep in bunks. A lot of days they pass out in their own beds from over practicing in the Kwoon, from drilling a thousand punches and kicks, raising and spinning _bo_ staffs overhead, ending in bruises so many that sleeping side-by-side physically hurts. Some days end with either one of them turning in first after a heavy dinner, before they decide to practice separately or go over strategies with the crew, or do whatever they have time for in the perpetually busy Shatterdome.

Most of the time, however, they would wordlessly get into the same bed. Other times, Hajime is the one to lift up his covers first and say, _aren’t you getting in?_ In the remaining few times, Oikawa ends up crawling underneath Hajime’s blanket to squeeze himself on the already small bed, curling into Hajime’s nape with breath too warm to ignore.

The past week, along with the words unsaid hanging over them like a heavy curtain of a spell, Oikawa sleeps on his own bed facing the wall. Hajime gets in his own bunk a bit later when the lights are already out, or when Oikawa just settled beneath the covers and bids him good night. Hajime would stare at that bit of skin, later. Oikawa’s exposed neck, below his unruly hair and above the loose collar of their standard-issue grey shirt. The only light color in the dark, at the far end of their room, a point on which he fixates as he drifts in and out of sleep.

That part of Oikawa is usually pressed against his lips as they sleep at night, heavy with fatigue but familiar as air. It is now something that feels temporary, that will slip out of his grasp the longer they play at this silence. The fear that stays, the ticking clock that begs you to run, and yet your feet root themselves to the ground.

It’s not a fight. They don’t fight anymore; they never do, really.

He sleeps dreaming about nosebleeds and wakes to Oikawa spending more and more time in the bathroom.

Hajime doesn’t ask him about it.

.

Hanamaki does end up telling about their Drift to Matsukawa, who asks Hajime about it up on the platforms facing their steel-blue Jaeger during dinner. Everyone else is occupied with extra servings of _tonkatsu_ slices, a rare treat, and the J-Tech crew captain chooses the right moment to raise the question to an unhinged Hajime who is fidgeting in his boots. These days, Hajime finds himself plagued with a fear that is neither unexplainable nor far-fetched; a fear that had been rooted since his first day stepping in a living, steaming nuclear reactor. He’s not even sure he should be the one to tell anyone else about it, but knowing Oikawa, that man would probably never tell a soul.

Hajime spills the truth, eventually. Fear plagues him from staring at Oikawa’s back at night, and Hajime’s convinced himself enough that he’s not built to endure something as desperate as this. He talks not only to Matsukawa and Hanamaki, who are heads of their own Jaeger crew, but also to someone who knows how to handle an apocalypse as big.

He says it in the empty Kwoon just before midnight.

“Oikawa’s started getting nosebleeds.”

The words fall like rocks from a high cliff.

“Christ.”

Miya Atsumu was Nagasaki’s champion himself, back in the day. He and Osamu, his twin brother, held the fort for the whole coast of Kyushu to stay unbreached during the early war, not to mention countless supports for other Asian ocean strike groups. Now he dresses in black and gold, the past colors of his old Mark-II Libera Jackal, and reigns as Kwoon Fightmaster of their Shatterdome. Atsumu is a beast himself: he kickboxed in high school with a touch of recreational volleyball, and he knows a dozen different ways to win by hand-in-hand combat—a couple dozen more if you add a _bo._ He spars with Hajime and Oikawa up to six hours a day almost every day of the week, keeps them in sync.

Atsumu understands the Drift, gets what is needed for two pilots to mind-meld with each other, knows what it feels to have your thoughts shared wholly with another person. He also gets what it’s like to stop piloting for good, even though Osamu is as healthy as he is but keeps traveling back and forth between Tokyo and Nagasaki.

“Since when?” he asks, and Hajime shakes his head, hands on his temples, eyes closed.

“I don’t—I saw it in the Drift. It feels like it’s been a while… I don’t know, two months? It wasn’t there during the drop before.” Off the coast of Shanghai, Category-II crab-like Skelter. They had won under an hour, with another Jaeger from Hong Kong.

Atsumu doesn’t reply for a while, and Hajime knows what goes on in his mind. Libera Jackal was also a nuclear Jaeger, after all. They both consumed the same pills from the same metallic tin, same prescription every single day. Luckily for the Miya twins, they didn’t pilot long enough for the radiation to settle in their guts.

“Does the Marshal know?” the Fightmaster asks again. Hajime gives him a shake of the head, a breath long-held. Atsumu stretches his legs on the wooden Kwoon floor, where they sparred fifteen minutes ago, and says, “I’m sorry, Hajime- _kun_.”

Hajime wants to nullify it, that apology. It feels like they’re putting a seal over an agreement, something already set in stone. He nods anyway. This impending doom is a looming apocalypse, what every pilot with Mark-III or earlier Jaegers had known since they stepped into the Conn-Pod. The risk that hovers above you like a curse.

Pick your hell. To die slaying a dragon?

Or to die by your own failing body?

“It’s gonna be out, sooner or later,” Hajime mutters.

The fact that Oikawa is close to being deemed unfit for duty. It’s only a matter of time, and Hajime soon can’t continue pretending he doesn’t see marks of red along the edges of their bathroom sink. A part of his chest hurts, and for a moment he thinks he can’t breathe. The thought of Oikawa, probably pulling out strands of loose hair, haunts him in ungodly hours. Where is he now? Sleeping in their room, awake under the covers? It aches, and it doesn’t stop.

“All this time I didn’t know,” Hajime shuts his eyes, imagines Oikawa at his best, at his brightest, all stars, “all this time he’s been burning.”

.

Onibaba attacked Tokyo in a legendary landing during the early summer of 2016. Coyote Tango single-handedly slew the Kaiju that destroyed half of the capital in a catastrophe painted blue. Inside the old Mark-I, Stacker Pentecost had piloted the Jaeger solo in a ride that went down in history. All through the fight, the man burned.

Hajime and Oikawa couldn’t take their eyes off the battle on the large screen in the Academy cafeteria. Cadets from their whole roster had been out of bed, staring at the live broadcast with utmost fear, not because they were horrified of the monster; but because they were seeing an impossible feat in front of their eyes. A venture never taken before. An unbelievable leap. A pilot riding solo in a nuclear Jaeger. How much of the radiation did Pentecost get exposed to? How did he struggle to stand up and face the unthinkable neural load on his brain? Even their instructors were wide awake because they got to see a marvel unfolding on itself.

Not even half an hour later did they stare at the blue all over Tokyo, from Onibaba’s shredded torso, torn limbs and all. They saw Mori Mako emerge, the girl in blue, red shoe on hand, Tokyo’s daughter.

They heard about the legendary man’s star-studded career but never got to know what happened after that drop. Not about Pentecost’s end to his jockey days because his body wasn’t able to take another hour in the radiation. Not about Pentecost’s copilot, Tamsin Sevier, getting decommissioned due to her growing cancer. All they heard and knew and got spoon-fed about was the numerous theories, the endless textbook phrases, the countless basic training they had to go through to make the first cut in the Academy.

Kaiju biology. Jaeger tech procedural terms. A thousand hours in the Kwoon to spar with each other, with _bo_ staffs, with wooden dummies, with bare hands. Workshops to know the Jaeger inside and out. The innumerable terms you use to understand how Drifting, piloting, fighting in the Shatterdome works.

_It’s called LOCCENT for mission control. Conn-Pod for Jaeger cockpit. The neural handshake has to be initiated to start a Drift and mind-meld with your copilot. Jaegers are nuclear for now, with a radiating heart to power through the ocean, but they’re trying to find a way to make it digital. Stuff the pilots with meds as a safety net, though._

A week after Coyote Tango’s solo kill, Oikawa had sneered over their printouts before their written exam: _they figured how to slay dragons, but not cure cancer._

_Ironic, huh,_ Hajime had replied. It had been more than two months since he and Oikawa enrolled to the Jaeger Academy straight after graduating from university. They had been a couple of hopefuls back then, standing on the Academy’s entrance ceremony; arguing whether Kaijus were, as what they were called, _Kaijus_ (Hajime) or really just aquatic extraterrestrial aliens (Oikawa). Long were the days of goofing around, because the first and most difficult cut of the cycle was lurking just around the corner. Meanwhile, Hajime would be turning twenty-two in ten days.

What’s more ironic than cancerous pilots, according to Hajime, was how Oikawa never managed to shed the habit of driving himself past the point of destruction. During the sixteen years they had been friends, Oikawa made sure that Hajime would be the first person to tell him off for overworking. Days in Anchorage were exactly the same.

Hajime was the one who broke curfew with him, waited in the Kwoon as he practiced an extra dozen set of stances and kicks. Hajime opening multiple textbooks and printouts under the crappy night light in their cramped room shared with two other cadets, shushing Oikawa when he verbally memorized the anatomy of the Kaiju too loud for daybreak. Hajime smuggling bread from dinner for Oikawa to chew when he gets hungry in ungodly hours while studying under his covers.

It was Oikawa trying too hard to get through the first cut when Hajime knew without question that he would pass with flying colors. He sparred like the Fightmaster’s shadow, recited Kaiju organ names like the scriptures, assembled Jaeger spare parts like building a toy house. He was above most of their peers anyway from the start, intellectually and physically. More than just passing, Oikawa wanted to stay at the top 1% of their cadet roster because he knew he _could_. He wanted to get through to the second cut, through the Drifting tryouts, because he knew challenges such as written exams and theoretical knowledge would never be too hard to handle.

Drifting, on the other hand, posed another question entirely.

.

By 2019, piloting settles down relatively easy with the occasional trickle of pleasure.

“You do realize Tsukishima’s going to be on the Tokyo team this time,” Matsukawa munches on his sausage _,_ deliberately grabbing Hanamaki’s juice box as he finishes his lunch, “if he’s going to play, that is.”

“After losing a copilot, he’d probably be dying to do anything that takes his mind off jockeying, don’t you think?” Shoving a middle finger up Matsukawa’s face, Hanamaki lets his drink slip and settles for cold water instead. From the far end of their lunch table, a desperate groan resounds.

“Shit, and he’d be blocking with Kuroo. That’s going to be nasty,” Miya Atsumu unscrews his suspicious flask although it’s the smack-dab middle of the day. For a Fightmaster, Atsumu leads quite an unhealthy hobby; now that he’s not a pilot anymore, Hajime guesses. “With that bastard Bokuto, on top of that. This weekend is going to be hell.”

“Thank goodness I’m already here, then, Tsumu-Tsumu,” beside Hajime, a singsong voice chimes lightly. Oikawa flashes a grin brighter than heavy floodlights in the middle of a rainstorm, and Atsumu glares at him right back. “When my sets get sloppy, which is unlikely, then you’re welcome to sub me.”

Atsumu, in the middle of pouring liquor into his drink, begins to day something that starts with _you ass_ , but gets cut short when Kita Shinsuke, Nagasaki’s chief for LOCCENT mission control, swipes his drink off the table and downs the whole thing himself. “You still have a dozen cadets to spar with this afternoon, Atsumu, and I won’t let you smack them while drunk.”

Their whole table howls with laughter in response.

Having a sister Shatterdome protecting neighboring regions comes with its own perks. Their crews are interchangeable, if not actually part of one big organization itself. It’s common for Nagasaki officers to support larger Tokyo Jaeger drops and likewise. Any Jaeger team who can be dispatched will be a backup for the other, and crew exchanges for seasonal rotations are an option for officers looking for more experience. While other Shatterdomes might be further in physical distance and becomes more isolated with their own ocean to protect, Japan’s two forts submerge in their eastern glory. They are considered one big team, aside from crews dedicated to individual Jaegers.

And so, on luckier time periods where the Kaiju Watch does not detect any movement from the Breach, they arrange visits. Hajime can never tell if it’s secretly a political move to keep the PPDC as humble as possible; he knows their visits get televised once in a while. If it’s a measure to secure more funding from the United Nations then it must be a successful endeavor, because they keep doing this friendship volleyball match between Japan’s two Shatterdomes at least twice a year. As time goes, their friendly game becomes a leisurely getaway everyone looks forward to. Who would have guessed they have extremely talented players among the officers?

_I’m pretty sure we’re all athletes in a parallel universe,_ Oikawa had theorized one day over dinner, and the long table mused what would the 2021 Olympics look like if there were no Kaiju and Jaegers.

Their next game is just a few days away and Oikawa can’t stop bringing it up. As if it’s the only thing he can talk about with Hajime, setting a wall and rewinding the safest topic they can manage to talk about over and over again. _I’d be worried about Kuroo and Megane_ -kun _’s monster block, but we have Omi-Omi and you to break past them. Their libero spells trouble, though, Yakkun’s always been a pain in the ass. Do you think this will get broadcasted as well, Iwa_ -chan? _You know, that Hollywood actress who’d been eyeing me at the start of the year, she’s probably dying to see me onscreen._

All across practice, lunchtime, dinnertime. Oikawa holds on to the one subject that is not piloting, not Jaeger, not the Drift. They stopped talking about Kaijus in the last couple of weeks when it used to be all they chattered about. What new moves they could pull against a higher Kaiju Category. Beating Atsumu’s cheeky grin off his face in a sparring session. Going over recordings of their drops to see which openings they could have struck, what new biology the Kaiju anatomy would have evolved in the next attack.

Now, every mention of piloting comes with the association of the Drift, of what they had gone through in their last connection, Hajime’s vision in crimson, what Oikawa desperately tried to conceal since God-knows-when. They still haven’t talked about it yet, and Hajime can feel it towering over them like a monument of torment, waiting for the slightest crack on thin ice. He feels it like a dam of currents, filled to the brim. Just the tiniest slip of the tongue and they won’t be able to turn back. An irreversible track to ignite something yet unnamed.

What does it all mean, anyway, to bide more time? Days have passed with Oikawa getting up in the middle of the night to shut himself in the bathroom, coughing his dinner into the toilet. Hajime staying awake under the covers, willing himself to stay put, because he doesn’t want Oikawa to see his wet eyes stained red. Oikawa staying behind after practice because the pain splits his head open and he couldn’t stand, yet he makes up shit excuses such as _catching my breath, you go ahead_ and Hajime waits outside the door instead, shuffling away only when he hears Oikawa finally gets up to leave, pretending he has been in their room all along waiting for Oikawa to return.

It’s a pointless, pathetic dance tethered on so-called trust and the tug between their minds. It doesn’t need to be said that both of them keep chasing nothings, going in circles, burying things they know all along. Buying more time to not talk about it won’t keep the nosebleeds from coming, nor the headaches, nor the fatigue. Oikawa is delaying an armageddon just to open the path for another, and the latter comes with searing pain and sleepless nights where Hajime struggles with all his might from breaking.

Hajime restrains himself from bombarding Oikawa with questions partly because he knows Oikawa hates being pitied. The other part is because this outcome is nowhere near what they imagined the future would be, so far out that they can’t possibly be ready to talk about it. They won’t ever be.

This is unlike him to hold back, and yet, he doesn’t know himself that well anymore.

Two days before the fourth friendship volleyball match between the two Japan Shatterdomes, late November 2019, Hajime decides to walk on a tightrope.

“We need to practice Drifting again soon. In the simulation.”

He fakes nonchalance as they walk through the corridors after morning assembly. Oikawa, a few steps ahead, visibly flinches. Before he can turn back and respond offhandedly about something not even remotely related, Hajime interjects.

“It’s useless to keep putting it off, isn’t it, Oikawa?”

Talking about it. Hell, _thinking_ about it. Stop sleeping so far apart from fear of crying themselves dry.

Oikawa smiles at him, foreign and feigned. “I think I’ll hit some with ‘Tsumu today. You know? Get ready for the match,” a wink, the white of his teeth between parted lips, “and Ushiwaka _-chan_ is finally around, so I’m challenging him for that long-overdue sparring session.”

Oikawa doesn’t wait for him to resume walking, because he steps away with all the cheerfulness in the world. Halfway through the hall, though, he calls back to Hajime. “I think we’ve always been in perfect sync anyway, Iwa- _chan_ ,” this smile, the one he wears at this moment, reeks of misery, and it slaps Hajime with agony. “We don’t need to practice anymore, don’t you think?”

Despite knowing Oikawa might say that to avoid getting into the Drift with him, avoid engulfing themselves with the constant memory of nosebleeds and falling hair, divulging how much blood did Oikawa cough up since their last drop against Hayabusa, Hajime knows they really are always in sync.

Oikawa, of all people, always has faith in their connection—even before Drifting existed.

.

It was 2016 once again in the late summer days, almost three months after they passed the first cut.

Only nine cadets were left in their roster, and they would all pass the next and final cut either as an esteemed PPDC officer in the higher ranks or as a Ranger—Jaeger pilot. They were all qualified to jockey, theoretically speaking. All that remained was to test their mental steadiness if they had a solid enough mind to handle the neural load and move two-thousand tons of a metallic leviathan into the ocean. Give them textbooks that define the 52 stances of the Jaeger Bushido, have them train every muscle strand in the Kwoon until it broke, and they still wouldn’t mean a thing if they couldn’t Drift or didn’t have anyone compatible to Drift with.

One, two, three of their cadet mates got crossed off the list. They came out of the Drift simulation tottering, hanging on vague awareness, stuck in a memory over and over. _Don’t chase the rabbits,_ their instructors said. _Random access brain impulse triggers._ Don’t get caught up in a loop, whatever trauma you had. Watch them pass, let them go, and allow yourself to dive into the mind of your partner’s. Easier said than done.

Those were pilots incapable of Drifting, mind locked with impenetrable walls, unable to trust their testing partners. When they didn’t have the mental fortitude, things like Drift compatibility got torn down to the ground, driven to nothing. How could you share your mind, memories, and even emotions with another soul? Forget finding the perfect copilot. No point in camaraderie.

Akaashi, for example, was another excellent Japanese cadet on the top of their roster. Hajime always thought he would end up in a drivesuit once they found him a suitable copilot, but the boy hung his head low when he confessed about always holding onto a memory seconds too long in the Drift test. Even so, he ended up in a place no fresh cadet had ever managed to reach before—LOCCENT mission control in the biggest Shatterdome in Hong Kong. He didn’t even have to wait until graduation to get whisked away.

It was a few days before the second cut when they heard of a Japanese Ranger looking for a new partner. His former copilot had been paralyzed waist down from a drop against a Category-II outside Vladivostok. Ushijima Wakatoshi was left-handed and yet he occupied the right hemisphere of the Jaeger, the dominant position. Rumor had it that the infamous Ushiwaka— _like the warrior,_ said Oikawa with spite, _and he’s our fucking age, too_ —was a rare prodigy able to Drift with just anyone.

“Then I don’t get why they’d pick me as a top candidate if he’s got a whole roster to Drift with,” Oikawa protested as they took refuge on the balcony overlooking Anchorage’s waters, half an hour before their next training session, “is it because we’re Japanese?”

At that point, there were only five cadets, including Hajime and Oikawa, who were able to hold themselves in a Drift. Oikawa had been ranked first for a tryout with Ushijima in the Kwoon; their Fightmaster had actually recommended him, due to his exceptional record.

“You know it’s algorithm-paired,” Hajime had half-listened, half-occupied watching the horizon disappear above the still ocean. “They have Ushijima’s psyche profiled and it matches with yours best. What I don’t get even more is why you’re sulking.”

Hajime had been right: there’s no reason to sulk. Except there was, according to Oikawa. The latter grunted, made an annoyed sound from his throat.

“Like hell they can tell who I’m compatible with based on personality quizzes. The whole thing is like horoscopes on crack.”

“You shouldn’t be complaining, dickwad,” Hajime glared, then threw his gaze elsewhere, “some guys would kill to be in your shoes.”

“Would you?”

Oikawa’s gaze was a challenge to bait his hesitation. Hajime let a beat pass, then two. “I don’t see my life peaking by being Ushijima’s copilot, so no.”

“Well, what if you’re mine?”

There were a million layers, multitudes of levels in their defined relationship through almost two decades. Hajime wasn’t ready to analyze and revisit them one by one, so he didn’t answer and exhaled a long, smoky breath instead to the unbelievable Anchorage weather, still chilly even in the summer. Oikawa, exasperated enough to ignore Hajime’s uncertainty, continued with a sigh.

“You know I might as well go home if I can’t pilot with you.”

Oikawa talked bullshit once in a while, but Hajime had never heard anything more mindless than this. That expression on his face, wrinkled forehead and narrowed eyes, spelled irritation and dead seriousness. Hajime, already tired, shook his head.

“That’s too petty a reason to throw this away, Shittykawa.”

A breath escaped Oikawa’s lips, unbelieving and stunned. “Screw you, Hajime.”

Hajime stepped back from the balcony railing, held it with one hand as he faced Oikawa with a raised voice. Of all the time and place to behave foolishly, Hajime didn’t think the day before the greatest tryout of Oikawa’s life would be the best choice.

“Screw me? I don’t understand why you’re wasting a chance to be with a senior pilot,” it was the truth. Their Fightmaster, the one person who supervised all their physical training and would be able to recognize the remotest chance of Drift compatibility, wouldn’t recommend Oikawa for naught. “Since when piloting with me becomes your make-or-break?”

That sounded awful coming out of his mouth because Oikawa stared back at him in fury. He stood up straighter, towering slightly above Hajime.

“Since when is it not?”

His gaze drilled through Hajime as if wanting to leave a wound. Oikawa didn’t leave him any room to interject, because he continued hotly without pause.

“Don’t tell me this isn’t what you want, because I know damn well why we enlisted together in the first place,” _turn back, rewind to just last year. The time we saw that American Jaeger stained ultramarine in the night._ “If I have any doubt of us piloting together, which I’m fucking sure I don’t, I won’t be here betting my six months won’t go to waste. Look at me and tell me I’m wrong.”

There were so, so many implausible statements in Oikawa’s argument. The way he spoke without doubt was beyond belief, it gave Hajime a hard time to form a coherent enough antithesis. It’s a ridiculous kind of trust, what they had between them. That time, Hajime thought, was just one of many moments where he didn’t own even half of the self-esteem Oikawa managed to muster during their training.

Oikawa’s words were saying that he knew Hajime would be beside him as they go through the impossible cuts. They passed the first exam. The second one wouldn’t be a bother.

“How are you so confident that we’d be Drift compatible, anyway?”

Hajime had asked, holding his stare for a while before dropping it to their feet with a defeated grunt. A conviction so powerful it sprouted skepticism in his gut. That’s Oikawa. The Oikawa he knew sixteen years and counting.

Oikawa gave him an annoyed click of his tongue, shaking his head and looking away.

“I don’t even think that’s a valid question.”

Sometimes, Hajime realized, he second-guessed himself too much.

.

The Fightmaster ended up telling Ushijima’s Marshal the next day that Oikawa was too stubborn, so it wouldn’t be a good match after all.

Their compatibility sparring session lasted for fifteen whole minutes, either side unrelenting, never giving in. They passed the four-point mark pretty quickly and Hajime thought Oikawa would scowl as he bowed and ended the match, but the cadet merely pushed himself up and got back on his feet, spinning his _bo_ with a prideful look. Ushijima understood in a split-second interval and the match resumed, exceeding six points for each side, then eight, then ten. Then it just didn’t stop until the Fightmaster had to bellow a firm “enough!” from the sidelines.

Hajime had witnessed it himself, the headstrong cadet meeting Japan’s Drifting genius. With half of the Academy cadets and crew agape as they watched, clearly recognizing the incredible connection between the two men, it came as a shock when Oikawa wasn’t declared Ushijima’s copilot in the end.

His best friend was in the limelight for the rest of that day, his hair constantly ruffled by almost every palm in the Academy, his back slapped and punched by passing cadets and instructors. _There’s finally someone who Ushijima Wakatoshi can’t Drift with._

“I told you so,” Oikawa muttered from the top bunk that night, in their room that their two roommates had left for failing the first cut. There’s nothing more to be said because Oikawa made his point clear.

There were things Hajime only found out after connecting in the Drift with Oikawa, though.

Like how Ushijima shook Oikawa’s hand above the fighting mat, with a voice so low nobody else could catch: _you shouldn’t have let your petty pride get in the way._ How Oikawa met their Fightmaster alone after the spar, saying how he was sure he would be Drift compatible with Hajime. How the Fightmaster replied _you are_ without missing a beat, _I knew your potential the moment I saw you two spar in your first week._ Finding Ushijima a new copilot was their priority at the time. Every Shatterdome in the Eastern Hemisphere knew how essential Ushijima’s talent was for building an impenetrable wall of defense.

_I had to get you to try sparring with him first, see what it unlocks,_ the Fightmaster shrugged, stared at Oikawa straight through, _after all, don’t you want to jockey with the most promising young Ranger in the whole continent?_

Oikawa answered almost immediately with a prideful smile.

_I want something even better._

.

Through the years, Ushijima Wakatoshi never ceased to say this in front of an irritated Oikawa: “You should’ve become my copilot.”

“Your last copilot died, asshole.”

Oikawa’s sarcastic reply is met with a shrug as Ushijima stares ahead, swallows the whole exchange like a breeze. It’s been three years since that compatibility spar in Anchorage’s Kwoon, and now they stand on the same makeshift court with a flimsy net in Tokyo’s empty hangar with the whole Shatterdome watching. It’s a Saturday in November 2019, and the friendship volleyball match is reaching its peak.

Ushijima steps back, stretches the whole eight seconds he is given, then charges forward and serves a particularly mean jump floater to the court. They keep him at the bench only as a pinch server since the Drift genius is apparently _also_ a volleyball prodigy with a southpaw. Having him as Nagasaki’s joker card never fails to amaze; they need the element of surprise. That, and Ushijima’s nervous system can’t handle much physical strain to play a full set.

The Polish pilot Ushijima jockeyed with instead of Oikawa fell on their first and only drop, back in 2016. His name was monumentalized, his funeral highly esteemed and attended by Marshals across the globe. It was a nasty fight against a horrifying Category-III. Ushijima was lucky to get out alive, but his body was never the same ever since. He got honorably discharged from the PPDC, then stayed as the Nagasaki Shatterdome Marshal’s right-hand man. A brilliance too bright to let go.

That excellence is also what made the whole Tokyo team groan from across the net as Ushijima scores a service ace. They are in the second set with Nagasaki taking the first and the opponent calls for a timeout. Hajime took the chance to slap Ushijima’s shoulder appreciatively, but the man has his attention on Hajime’s copilot.

“I didn’t mean anything bad by that,” he says to an ignorant Oikawa who is pretending to be very busy chugging his drink, “If you were with me, I’d probably still be jockeying.”

Oikawa coughed water from his nose that instant, earning a cackle from Kaiju Science lead Tendou Satori, their middle blocker. Their banter had been for the whole team to overhear, and knowing Ushijima’s obliviousness to verbal (and emotional) cues, it doesn’t seem like a conversation too private to chime in.

“Ya might, but then again,” Atsumu said from the bench, having sat out on this set, “if Oikawa did, Japan won’t ever have their first national superstar pilot team.”

“Miya- _san_ ’s right,” Goshiki, Nagasaki’s newest Ranger and wing spiker, Ushijima’s protege, added with a towel slung around his neck. “As much as I want you to keep piloting, Ushijima- _san_ , Sigma’s drop in Tokyo Bay was something irreplaceable.”

“Should’ve seen it coming. With a track record like that, they’re bound to get the spotlight one day,” Tendou rolls his eyes, readjusts the taping on his fingers, “Hajime- _kun_ ’s awkward as hell, of course, but Tooru- _kun_ ’s been ready for stardom since day one.”

Oikawa gives Tendou a wink as the referee blows his whistle and their team readies to return.

“Well, I guess you should save your regrets for the deathbed, Ushiwaka- _chan_ ,” Oikawa replies as he walks back to his rotation spot, leaving Ushijima sighing on the bench behind them.

Hajime, noticing his snobby tone, jabs at his side. “Shit-mouth,” he seethes, and Oikawa laughs.

“You do realize I’m on your side, Iwa- _chan,_ ” Oikawa looks at him far too long as Goshiki gets ready for his serve from the back row, “piloting with me must be the peak of your dull life.”

Hajime doesn’t get to slap the back of Oikawa’s head, not only because Tokyo’s Bokuto returns the serve and aims right at him to receive, but also because he thinks: _yeah, maybe._

Having a pair of Rangers in their team always proves to be an advantage. When the Miya twins still jockeyed together, they were the most dreaded setter-spiker combination from Nagasaki. Having someone who Drifts with you as a teammate takes away the need to have a conversation. All that’s left on the court are expressions, fleeting glances, subtle gestures that indicate the slightest need to toss a bit higher, move a bit closer, run-up from a bit farther. Their non-pilot players usually know when to steer clear and let them have the floor. An already strong team can always rely on perfectly-synced players, after all.

Nagasaki used to have Tsukishima and Yamaguchi as well, but the latter preferred to watch his copilot play rather than joining in. When Tsukishima transferred to Tokyo after Yamaguchi’s death just two months ago, Hajime had thought the move wouldn’t do him much good aside from avoiding memories. But look at him now—towering behind the net with Kuroo Tetsurou, of all people. Maybe opposites really do attract, or don’t. Kuroo had gone through a similar loss just a month before Tsukishima, and his copilot is now in a hopeless coma. It won’t be a surprise if Kuroo and Tsukishima bonded, ironically, over pain.

For now, though, their blocking combination is deadly enough to frustrate the usually even-tempered Sakusa. The Kaiju Watch specialist is an exceptional hitter, yet he looks as if he’s trying to murder a smirking Kuroo with his glare. From the sidelines, commentary still continues animatedly by a very enthusiastic Sugawara, Tokyo’s psychological analyst.

“Tokyo won’t give in after facing that killer service ace by pinch server Ushijima Wakatoshi. This breaks Nagasaki’s turn after two serves! No gaps in Tokyo’s defense thanks to the surprising blocker combination, resident middle blocker Kuroo and Tokyo newbie Tsukishima. It’s kind of satisfying for him to play against his original team, I suppose.”

Sugawara has an uncanny ability to warm up to people in almost no time, yet nobody complains about him being too friendly. Hajime thinks it’s the perk of being a psych analyst everyone spills their worries to. His commentaries, however, gets more annoying as time goes.

“This set is reaching its peak for Tokyo after a mean loss from Nagasaki in the first set. Yes, yes, it’s very annoying even for me. We are now at twenty-two to twenty, breakpoint for Tokyo! Will Tokyo balance out this set and take the fight to a third, or will Nagasaki win in straight sets? Let’s hope for the first—I’m kidding, Oikawa.”

Oikawa, making enemies as he lives and breathes, smiles poisonously and calls to the referee table. “Don’t make me stop calling you Mr. Pleasant.”

Sugawara, unflinching, continues his comments while beaming. “Now it’s Tokyo’s turn to serve by the ever-energetic Bokuto. He steps back, hits a beautiful jump serve—OH, but it touches the net! Is it a let serve or a fluke from the ace? Either way, it’s a tough dig for Nagasaki, with Goshiki receiving… passes it to Oikawa, who tosses—no, HE SPIKES IT! It’s a spike!”

Oikawa hits a cross, leaving the entire crowd gasping, but then the setter clicks his tongue upon seeing Yaku Morisuke digging his kill like it was nothing. Sugawara laughs on the microphone.

“Ball is saved brilliantly by libero Yaku! What a great defense from Tokyo! It’s strategically put for a follow-up set from Kageyama. And—synchro attack in a flash, we see everyone with a full run-up! It’s Bokuto and Kuroo and Tsuki—HINATA, zipping from the back! HE HITS A STRAIGHT—”

A slam resounds on the court.

“—and Sakusa DIGS IT! HE DIGS THE QUICK! Clearly still annoyed from getting roofed earlier, I presume—and the ball passes directly to Oikawa—who will it be for? IWAIZUMI, FROM THE OTHER SIDE OF THE COURT! Twenty-two to twenty-one, Nagasaki catches up! That was an amazing quick by the eternally in-sync Sigma Cerulean pilots!”

Hajime lands, receives slaps on his back and someone ruffling his hair. He runs back grinning, meeting Oikawa in an automatic fist bump. Their team cheers on from the sides while his hand stings from the kill, but it’s numbed by happiness from a familiar feeling. It was a good set.

Nobody ever questions Atsumu’s decision to let Oikawa become the first-string setter on their casual matches. It’s about putting up perfect sets for Hajime the ace, which is always going to be less than perfect anyway when it’s tossed by someone other than Oikawa. Both of them being perpetually in-sync. Both of them recognizing the other’s presence like seeing their own shadows on the floor. They are Nagasaki’s weapon, in the ocean and on the court; always up against monsters.

For Jaeger pilots, being in sync might only start after jumping into the Drift, after establishing a neural bridge. In Hajime’s case, he felt it far earlier—something he had always known but buried by his own insecurity. Oikawa is always the one who puts more trust in them, or at least that’s what he declares. Hajime spends too much time in Oikawa’s mind to be able to say it’s not a lie.

Most first Drifts come with a feeling of bewilderment, a revelation upon discovering someone else’s mind fits yours like a glove. Just knowing that _it exists,_ the other person _exists_ , the tug-of-war between your minds starts from the moment you connect. In Hajime’s case, the shock hit not because he could Drift ridiculously easy with Oikawa.

Instead, the bombshell dropped when their secrets came spilling out in the open.

.

Ushijima Wakatoshi was called a genius because he carried nothing into the Drift. No emotions, no memories, no past trauma. He threw everything away and let his copilot see through himself without holding back. It was a feat that rivaled that of Stacker Pentecost’s mental fortitude. Hajime and Oikawa’s Drift, on the other hand, was not remarkable for replicating Ushijima or Pentecost. It was how they both carried _everything_ into the Drift and still connected powerfully nevertheless.

It was early September 2016 when they Drifted together for the first time. Their instructors, psych analysts, and neural bridge operators repeated over and over and over again: _do not chase the rabbits. Do not dwell on your regrets. Do not think about your shame._

They stood side by side in the simulation drivesuit, clad in standard grey-black, closing their eyes on cue. There were officers everywhere initiating the procedure. There were anticipating eyes on them from outside the simulator window; the Fightmaster, the training chief, their fellow cadetmates. They were the only cadet pair who had Drift compatibility with one another. Everything was in bright blue. There was a piece of resounding advice from their instructors to _just relax and let go_. _Now initiating the Neural Handshake._

Something glowed and tugged on the back of his mind, a sensation of falling and getting pulled into an extension in his brain. A vast room, the running sequences of memories past, something he later learned was called a shared headspace. He ran through them, touched the echoes of years flying by, his own life stretching far and far back. The summers he spent as a boy in Miyagi. The first beetle he captured, caged in a plastic box only to be released again later. His father’s wide shoulders. His mother’s bitter _sencha_ and her precious kimono collections. The boy next door he spent the rest of his childhood with, who never left his side. A worn-out _Mikasa_ volleyball, blue and yellow spinning into a blur. Their first team jersey in cobalt blue. The wooden floor in their middle school gymnasium, slick with sweat. Bleeding blisters and bandaging each other’s fingers. Tears shed over an injured knee. Warm loaves of bread they shared on early dawns on the way to practice.

The next thing he knew, all of Oikawa hit him like a tidal wave.

It wasn’t just a recollection of moments. It was boundless emotions and instincts, surging over and swallowing him whole. It was being drowned in Oikawa, blended and fused together, all his reflexes and thoughts and feelings enveloping him without a doubt. Oikawa opened up to him with no hesitation, offering his whole mind to take, brimming with trust, and the unexpected warmth was overwhelming.

Hajime could feel the entirety of their being, one mind in separate bodies.

Maybe it had always been this way since they were young boys shaking hands in front of their childhood home. Since Hajime put on Oikawa’s T-shirts like it was his and Oikawa did exactly the same. Since Oikawa learned how to toss Hajime a perfect set. Since Hajime stayed through sleepless nights watching Oikawa observe a recording of their past matches, troubleshooting what went wrong. Since their first petty argument over the existence of aliens, and their last while facing Anchorage’s endless waters.

Since an unwritten agreement was made that they would always walk home together. Since Hajime would undoubtedly say yes to anything Oikawa asked, even when he was being stupid. Rubbing ointments on his bruises. Keeping an extra band-aid in his pocket out of old habit. Since Hajime memorized the shape of Oikawa’s laugh, a windchime, a song. Since Hajime remembered the burn of Oikawa’s tears on his shoulder the day he almost quit volleyball. The casual yet electric touch on the back of his neck. The ends of his unruly hair. The edges of his lips when he formed a toothy smile.

The dip of Oikawa’s waist on nights he slept over in Hajime’s too-narrow bed. The endless curve that was his eyelashes in the darkness of his bedroom at the break of dawn. The steady motion of his rising and falling chest deep in slumber, arm slung over Hajime like an assurance.

Back in class, they had heard PPDC psychologists say, _there’s a common modesty reflex in pilots-in-training. Embarrassment out of a sexual experience is the biggest hurdle that causes most cadets can’t sync together._ The theory had come out on their written exam, and Oikawa teased him with a stupid grin on his face.

_That won’t be a problem for us then, Iwa-_ chan, Oikawa had given him an obnoxious wink, _since I know everything about your sexual adventures, which you have none._ Hajime had hit him on the side of the head, and Oikawa had laughed heartily. They never talked about it. A thorny topic Hajime passed off with numerous assumptions that he pretended had answered all his questions.

The way he never asked if Oikawa ever brought a girl home to his parents throughout high school and college (Oikawa never did). How he never kept track of Oikawa’s ex-girlfriends who he went through like changing clothes (fifteen, and Oikawa was not in love with any of them). How he was always disinterested in Oikawa’s romantic life, because he assumed Oikawa never needed to tell him, never had any problems with his girlfriends, always satisfied and happy (Oikawa wasn’t).

Then again, maybe they had always known what they felt because it’s something too apparent to state out loud. Or maybe something would explode if they did, ignite an atomic bomb, a one-way street with no turning back. Maybe they were tiptoeing an invisible line for nothing because the barrier was never really there. It only hung like an atmosphere, manifested through hundreds of assumptions and guesses based on mere glances, while the real answer had been lying between them all along.

There were no secrets in the drift. Hajime saw everything with naked eyes and everything made sense. They had always been dreaming of the same thing, wanting, wondering, reaching out to one another while running in endless circles. He was there in the edges of Oikawa’s mind, and he in his.

Bare heart and skin. Touches never relayed. Moments breaking like glass. Countless leaps never taken. Desire constantly burning like ember. The reason they never talked about it, even when it had always been crystal clear, was because they were held back by the fear that their seams might come apart. Too afraid to expose the raw, rough tenderness in the bottom of their hearts.

Maybe they had always been in love with each other from the very start.

.

Coming off the simulation, the whole Academy crowded them, congratulated the newest pair of Jaeger-Ready pilots with an incredibly strong bond, the strongest they’d seen in months.

Hajime never looked at anything else other than Oikawa’s eyes, and they held each other’s gaze in the middle of the jam-packed simulator.

There’s only the two of them amidst dozens of clapping hands and roaring laughter, ignoring the rest of the world, forever staying in the Drift.

.

Oikawa was not asleep. Hajime knew this. He didn’t understand why, but he did.

They had always slept this way in the Academy; sharing a bunk bed, where Oikawa slept on the top one with Hajime on the bed below him. It came naturally with some bullshit Oikawa spewed about feeling special sleeping so high and waking up to a bird’s eye view of the tiny space that was their room. There was another bunk bed on the other side, previously occupied by their two fellow cadet roommates who didn’t make it through the first cut. They talked about moving beds not long after the boys went home, but it never happened.

And so, nights became a usual liturgy of getting cozy in their own space, no words exchanged except slowing breaths and steady, soft snores. Oikawa usually fell asleep way after him, because he had a bad habit of staying up too late. The night after their drift, however, stretched long and never seemed to reach sunrise.

Above him, the bed creaks; Oikawa shifted to his side, or to his back. It was past midnight. Hajime’s heart thundered.

Something might happen, or won’t. Now, maybe, or way later.

One moment Hajime was sure the night would pass uneventfully, then all of a sudden his stomach lurched and he was convinced Oikawa would murmur from the top bunk like, _hey. You awake?_ Maybe he’d whisper something to test if Hajime had fallen asleep. Or maybe Oikawa would step onto the ladder and make his way down.

Open Hajime’s covers. A hand on his forehead.

(He will. Definitely.

_No, he won’t._ )

There was not much conversation earlier as they got off the drivesuit and into their standard-issue grey T-shirts, back in sweats, back in their room. Wordlessly brushing their teeth and washing their faces. No discussions about how they touched minds with each other. No mentions about how surprisingly easy it was, to Drift. To stay inside. To keep watching the memories and emotions and rushing instincts and _desire_ , to observe the truth that had towered over them like a monument.

Another creak. Another huff from above. Hajime was almost sure Oikawa would open his mouth, say something other than exhalations. Judging from how their bed quivered, Hajime knew Oikawa was on his stomach now.

If the top bunk was transparent, sturdy steel becoming colorless, they would surely be staring at each other.

But way past that, even without the bed, in a vast void where nothing mattered but the two of them, Hajime could imagine both of them standing, facing each other, gazing, wondering, _asking._

_Hajime,_ with a tone he knew for years and probably eons before that, along all his lifetimes past, _have we always been…_

Yes, Hajime would answer without a pause. _Yes._

_._

Nothing happened that night.

Nor the night after, or the night after that.

.

Hajime and Oikawa got to South America by the end of September 2016 as top graduates of the Jaeger Academy. José Blanco was as much pilot as he was Marshal, a veteran Mark-I ex-Ranger himself, and the Lima Shatterdome moved in unison under his command. During the short three months they were there, Hajime saw the stars in Oikawa’s eyes once again.

They both became qualified pilots at an inconvenient time because if they had graduated in December they would get shipped immediately into the newly-built Tokyo Shatterdome and be assigned an official Jaeger. It was early autumn and Tokyo Bay was still under heavy construction, but the Academy headmaster wasted no time and flew them across the Pacific to become _observers._

_Don’t get cocky because you graduate as the only pair in your roster,_ the last earful they got from the man rang wild as the Lima Shatterdome bustled and exploded with commotion all around them, _you beat the others, but now’s the time to learn from the old boys._

See real Jaegers fight, immerse in the lively crew preparing for battle. Watch how pilots suit up, sense their adrenaline as it was yours, and celebrate the victory as one. Feel the desperation and restlessness, having to watch the war rush by but not jump in on your own. Get anticipation building into mountains and pump you to get in your own drivesuits one day.

They could’ve gone to Hong Kong, the nearest port, but no. They _had_ to go the hard way. Lima was vibrant and rich, its cafeteria a melting pot of clashing cultures and dozens of languages, and everyone laughed with all their heart.

After all, if they did go directly to Tokyo, they wouldn’t get to play basketball with the tallest guys from Lima’s J-Tech teams. They wouldn’t get to see Mark-II Diablo Intercept as a faraway dot just off the Peruvian coast, beating Kaijus to blue pulp. They wouldn’t get to spar with the best pilots of the Southern Hemisphere, study their fighting techniques, pore over schemes and recordings almost every night. They wouldn’t taste the heaven of smuggled Argentinian wine from Lima’s LOCCENT guy, or laugh over language barriers in hearty dinners every single day, or learn a lick of Spanish, which Oikawa somehow picked up like a second mother tongue.

If they didn’t land in Lima, there wouldn’t be countless other nights where Hajime lay sleepless in another bed, this time twin-sized and across from each other in their room. How he wondered what would happen in the dark with just the two of them and the silence that stretched like a fence. How he contemplated and asked himself thousands of times if he would get up and cross the barrier himself, pull Oikawa’s covers, sidle up beside him and not answer even when Oikawa asked.

Maybe Hajime was a coward, but Oikawa was too, because nothing happened.

Their last memory of Lima was Marshal Blanco’s grin, a thumb up for three months full of hard work before he let them go home to Japan.

“ _Ganbari_ ,” was what the Marshal said for both of them, in perfectly incorrect Japanese.

Only Oikawa had the nerve to laugh in his face.

.

Things don’t change even in 2019, where it’s only Oikawa who has the nerve to swear on national television.

Hajime is aghast because he’s the one gifted with an unusually large dictionary of curse words, but he certainly doesn’t have it in Spanish. Oikawa laughs around the court after he does a very cheeky setter dump, and across the second-story railings where other PPDC crews are watching, a line of men is yelling in Spanish. Something Hajime understood roughly meant, _kill ‘em, Oikawa. Give us another!_ And Oikawa, always basking in glory, shouts something right back at the cheering men.

Nagasaki scores three points in a row now, two of them thanks to Oikawa. As he predicted, a small television crew is huddled on the far corner of the court, their attractive anchorwoman chattering animatedly against a backdrop of their game. Twelve boys clad in sweaty shirts running around, a couple of them the brains for giant steel monsters able to divide the ocean. _Must be some game,_ Hajime thinks, for the civilians watching.

Another blow of the whistle and Hajime gets back in the game just as Oikawa ends his victory run, slapping his shoulder and grinning in the most familiar way Hajime knows. The ball is served from the back by Tendo’s Ushijima-inherited jump floater, and it passes the net in a beautiful arc. They disperse, receive, set, and spike all over again. The ball hitting Hajime’s palm, put by Oikawa the way Hajime is most comfortable with, passing the net only to be received by a smirking Yaku yet again. Damned liberos.

Their practice shirt is blue in the most shocking shade that Hajime somehow comes to love. He imagines the whole nation watching aquamarine-clad Nagasaki against Tokyo’s black, and wonders how his team would look tacky instead of superior. Miya Osamu was the one who brought the shirts to the bustling cafeteria with a wide smile last year, announcing his initiative to start the Japan Shatterdome bi-annual volleyball matches. While Atsumu sits as Fightmaster, Osamu retired entirely from fighting and chose diplomacy, a venture he proves to be excellent at. Nowadays he travels back and forth between Shatterdomes, and today he sits out from the match to watch from the sidelines.

_‘Samu’s probably bought these from the flea market by the sea in a ten-packer,_ Atsumu scowled back then, poking at his T-shirt, _they’re disgustingly bright._

_Eh, I don’t mind being flashy,_ Oikawa was the only one who received Osamu’s grateful gaze, _people notice us better on court._

Still, even when no one else took Oikawa’s stance, nobody bothered to change colors. Two years passed in a blink of an eye, and they’re still blue. Hajime doesn’t mind it too, as time goes, because the blue on their back reminds him of the life he and Oikawa used to want, back when they’re college seniors gaping at the television. The reason they came to the Academy, even after countless arguments with their families, the one thing that pushed them through.

It was a dream once made in blue.

.

August 2015 was when their neighboring homes exploded in anger back in Miyagi, out of sheer temper upon seeing an unimaginable future. Their dream, once blue, was tainted red by rage. Screaming mothers. Solemn fathers. Oikawa, eyes void of stars. Hajime, hanging on the brink of patience.

Fast forward to four months later, when they watched American Mark-I Romeo Blue fight against a Kaiju codenamed Hardship in the middle of the night through an international live emergency broadcast. Romeo Blue, packing punches into a scaly torso and horrific head. Launching missiles that light up the horizon. Romeo Blue, drenched in the ultramarine blood of a Kaiju, cracking crevices into the ocean’s bottom as they leave a carcass on the continent.

Romeo Blue, its pilots exiting through the top of the mecha’s head, two men clad in cobalt drivesuits catching their breath, drenched red with blood but very much champions.

Romeo Blue, José Blanco piloting the right hemisphere, waving to the helicopter crew hovering above their Jaeger, his smile captured on worldwide television and shot him to international stardom.

Fast forward to when Oikawa said, _I want a Jaeger just as blue._

_._

Her name was Sigma Cerulean, and she was the most beautiful thing Hajime had ever laid eyes on. Still is. Will always be.

They arrived at the Tokyo Shatterdome at the crack of dawn in December 2016. Crisp, fresh Rangers kissed by the South American sun, coming back home to greet Japan’s sunrise. The base was newly built, its walls sturdy and clean, gleaming against the backdrop of the glistening Tokyo Bay. Marshal Ukai Ikkei was waiting for them at the helipad along with many familiar faces from the Academy. Akaashi was there beside the Marshal, now second-in-command for Tokyo’s LOCCENT.

_Back from the study tour, eh, boys?_ Some of their ex-rostermates greeted, clapped their backs, jealous stares drowned by admiration and the rank flagging their jacket. Word had gotten around that the new pair of Rangers was specially reserved for Japan’s first Shatterdome, awarded the honor of piloting the newest and last Mark-II to be produced that year. The only pristine Jaeger in Tokyo.

The moment they stepped onto the Jaeger Bay to see her, it was plain amazement and overflowing love. All for a machine, a nearly two-thousand-ton gigantic man-made monster. She was shaded in faded teal, her drivesuits pewter blue, her heart a steaming nuclear reactor, and Hajime itched to get into the Conn-Pod and taste the sweet Drift once again. They went through Sigma’s anatomy on a detailed briefing in the control room. Rear jets in the arms. Cutting-edge turbines. Cooling vents and plasmacasters. Nothing went through to Hajime; only her color, the resounding hue of her gleaming paint.

Akaashi had a hand on his shoulder, muttering congratulations. Marshal Ukai’s voice was dim in the background, saying something along the lines of a welcome. Their dedicated Jaeger Tech crew stood around the room, clad in navy bomber jackets with Sigma’s insignia across the back. Matsukawa Issei and Hanamaki Takahiro were among them, and in a few minutes the four of them would be good friends.

At that moment Hajime only caught Oikawa’s gaze among the humdrum, dressed in stars: a look that said, _we made it._

_._

Nights in the Tokyo Shatterdome were vastly different from Lima. The South American crews weren’t afraid to get loud, celebrate each win or a mere passing day with ruckus and smiles. Contrastingly, come nightfall in Japan, the whole barracks folded itself into pure silence too loud for a drop of a pin. They had the smallest number of officers yet compared to longer running Shatterdomes, and Marshal Ukai was dead strict. Discipline and steadfastness brought a vicious solitude, and within it Hajime didn’t dare to make a sound.

The quiet meant there were no distractions, back to square one, trapped with Oikawa in half-empty quarters with small, separate beds across the room. He resigned to the thought of burying everything while they were awake and keep it for another time in the Drift, where they would once again see their emotions plastered like a billboard in Shibuya. A blaring neon advertisement in the Metro underground stations. A poster stretching mercilessly across the entirety of bus stops in Miyagi.

Their unspoken emotions were a sign announcing something unreadable to Hajime at first, only heard in vague frequencies like a radio station as they brushed elbows walking side-by-side in the corridors. It was a jolt of electricity when Hajime wanted to close the distance as they usually did, a hand on Oikawa’s nape, a gesture that used to fit their smallest crevices. The touching tips of fingers when Oikawa handed him his toothpaste, or his lunch tray, or his practice _bo._

It was portrayed crystal clear on the curve of Oikawa’s eyebrows signaling the slightest hesitation. By the frozen ends of his smile put into place by forced composure. Mirrored in the space they both struggled to maintain, perpetually suspended halfway, barricaded by doubt.

To keep it in was infinitely more difficult than saying it out loud. It was worse, having to _understand_ feelings at a split-second interval instead of hearing them with your own ears. It was like being forced to dive underwater without room to breathe, and with them virtually spending every waking hour together, Hajime prayed the tension would simply melt away.

At nights when the calm was thickest, Hajime simmered it down with the most tormenting of things.

“Oikawa, already took your pills?”

He was always the one to remind them about the medication.

After Onibaba’s attack on Tokyo in May 2016, there were two things certain in the PPDC: the first was an agreement to build a Japanese Shatterdome, and the second was the early wave of Ranger downfalls. By then, everyone knew piloting comes with a vice: it was like sealing a deal for your own death, either by Kaiju or cancer. Tamsin Sevier, Pentecost’s copilot, was living proof that Jaeger pilots weren’t gods. They knew how every Jaeger by far was nuclear, but Sevier’s discharge was kept under wraps with the pretense of ‘health complications’. Not her falling hair, not her bony limbs, certainly not the nosebleeds.

Everyone knew piloting Jaegers came with the risk of damaged nervous systems from too much neural load. However, it all depends on the fight. The cancer, it’s another thing entirely.

They issued pills as a precaution. Metharocin. Each Ranger owns a metallic box, name embossed along with ID numbers, a hundred pills each. Taken every day, more when they had simulations or drops. The way Rangers go about, they practically chew it like mints.

Oikawa used to swallow them with a scowl. A reminder of death, he said.

“Nope.”

That night, from across the room, his voice sounded just as sulky. Hajime scoffed, glaring at Oikawa’s back facing him, and barked hotly in response.

“You know the drill, idiot,” with a grunt, Hajime threw his blanket off him, swung his legs off the bed, grabbing a pillbox from the small table between their bunks. It didn’t matter which was whose. “I thought me shoving medicine down your throat was supposed to stop at middle school. You’re not twelve anymore, God’s sake.”

A tug, a pull from Hajime’s wrist, and Oikawa sourly sat upon his bed. With white pills jammed into his palm, he waited as Hajime poured him a glass of water and shoved it to his chest just as moodily. They were sitting close enough with Hajime on the edge of Oikawa’s bed, facing him to make sure he chugged down the pills. Oikawa had always hated medicine. The Metharocin, he had to take with water. _They make me feel sick, Iwa-_ chan _._

_No complaining,_ twelve-year-old Hajime knew how much cough syrup to pour on the spoon, how to make Oikawa gulp them down without protest, _because you_ are _sick. I’ll smack you on the head if you don’t get better soon._

“This isn’t cough syrup anymore, either,” twenty-two-year-old Oikawa grimaced after taking a big gulp of water. Oikawa never got used to the pills, anyway, ever since their days in Lima.

“Yeah,” Hajime replied, taking Oikawa’s glass from him, “this is worse.”

It’s January 2017. Four months since they started Metharocin, and Oikawa pulled this stunt sometimes; a muted, toned-down tantrum out of sheer pettiness. Hajime stopped taking it seriously after their fifth fight over the pills upon the realization that Oikawa stopped rebelling as soon as Hajime came over. It’s an unexplainable yet understandable little phenomenon, one Hajime had passed off as normal, a repetition of Oikawa’s stubbornness brimming to the surface now that he had to be obedient at all times as a Ranger. The only source of amusement he had was being in control over Hajime, dangling the meds like bait.

He played along with the usual threats of hurling Oikawa into the Tokyo Bay and leaving him to drown. Strangely, though, he didn’t stop to question these fits one bit. Nor did he mind being strung up like a puppet, dragged here and there with the dangerous threat of skipping Oikawa’s meds. Wasn’t it odd? Yet Hajime would tirelessly shove the pills into Oikawa’s palms night after night after night, reminding, asking, making him swallow.

That night was when he took a mindless stroll upon their shared barrier, letting his fingers skim Oikawa’s palm a bit longer. His index and middle finger traced the lines on Oikawa’s hand, blurred and dim against the dark. There was Oikawa’s breath brushing the crown of his head. The thickest kind of calm.

He was sure Oikawa was just as unthinking when he took Hajime’s fingertips, enclosing them with his open palm. There was Oikawa’s thumb skimming his knuckles, thoughtlessly so, as they stayed in silence. The digital clock on their narrow table ticked, ticked, ticked, beeped softly. Midnight.

“I don’t see the point of these,” Oikawa said in a low voice, “not when we’re practically entering a furnace every other day.”

Hajime had raised his head then, meeting Oikawa’s gaze. “It keeps cancer at bay, I guess,” he replied more gently than he expected to be, “give us a fighting chance.”

“While we’re the ones giving the world a chance to breathe. Yeah, right.”

Hand upon hand. Fingers on top of each other. Oikawa’s warm palm. Hajime savored it, relished the comfort, yearned to nail it to the back of his mind in a frame. They still hadn’t talked about their Drift, and at this rate probably never will. Hajime knew it by then, and surprisingly, he was okay.

“You know it’s… whatever, for me,” Oikawa was quiet, contemplative. A silence of its own kind, stark against the night, oddly bright. “As long I got to fight with you.”

Hajime saw the starry boy against Anchorage’s waters and endless horizon. The contradiction running against the world’s drifting genius Ushijima, the cadet looking out to fight his way and take what he wanted. Oikawa knew Hajime wouldn’t let him skip the drugs, even though they would inevitably and most probably die on duty as a hero should.

Oikawa didn’t really care about radiation. Never did.

Their Jaeger was beautiful, and yet she burned them to no end.

“Even if it doesn’t end pretty?” Hajime tried, only to be met with a cynical laugh.

“I never expected it to end with fireworks,” Oikawa had grasped his fingers a bit tighter, “explosions, maybe. A grand exit.”

“Always the drama queen.”

“All the world’s a stage, Iwa- _chan._ Might as well dress up.”

Hajime never really thought about it before, but it was then he realized Oikawa had made up his mind way, way before; longer than he thought, firmer than Hajime ever was. Maybe Oikawa had had his mind set since before the day he sparred Ushijima, or maybe before they saw Romeo Blue wreak havoc on a Kaiju, or even before they watched the flashing Jaeger Academy ad in the sweltering summer of their university days.

_I want to slay dragons with you, and only you._

_To the death._

Hajime didn’t mind. As long as they’re together.

.

Once again, their ocean of blue gets a drop of red.

The digital score board beside the court blares a vermillion 23-23 as Tokyo pulls even in the second set. It was Bokuto who slammed a massive spike, followed by a plethora of curses from Nagasaki’s supporters and an obnoxious _HEY HEY HEEEY_ from the monstrous wing spiker. When the Tokyo players run in circles to celebrate (mostly Yaku, Kuroo, and Bokuto doing a ridiculous booty-shaking dance just to spite them), the Nagasaki team are patting each other’s back to boost morale. They have an ongoing bet to win in straight sets, but clearly Tokyo isn’t going to hand victory to them on a plate.

From the sidelines, Ojiro Aran and Semi Eita are clapping their hands yelling _don’t mind_. Both are Jumphawk fighter plane captains, and they brought their whole pilot unit to cheer for Nagasaki. Kita Shinsuke the Nagasaki LOCCENT chief has his arms folded and stares straight on to their (very) sweaty middle blocker Suna Rintarou, being the one to coach him at practice. Tendou and Goshiki are glaring daggers across the net (to an oblivious Hinata), while Sakusa opts for closing his eyes and staying composed. Matsukawa flashes Hajime a middle finger from the benches, which obviously means: _get your play straight because I’m losing money._

Hajime unconsciously glances at Oikawa, half-knowing he catches the sight too and would verbalize the curses in Hajime’s head in a cynical singsong tune. His smile falls upon seeing his partner bending over his knees, catching his breath, a hand raised high.

Oikawa is asking for a substitution.

They’re not supposed to switch setters until the third set, because that’s what Oikawa agreed with Atsumu—that if they lose the second set, only then Atsumu will be welcome to get the third. _And it won’t happen anyway because we’re not losing on my sets, so just sit tight on the bench, Tsumu-Tsumu,_ Oikawa had said, in the name of his unending confidence and perfect hair.

Before Hajime finishes thinking, the whistle already resounds like a siren. The court falls into lapsed silence. The next second, Atsumu already steps into the court without protest. Oikawa shuffles out with his usual smile, then calls out to the concerned arena with a relaxed, nonchalant voice.

“Sorry, guys. Ran on very little sleep,” a grin. A _terrible_ grin. “We’ll lose this set if I push it, and for the sake of my lovely teammates, I’m not sacrificing our victory.”

Hajime would jump off the Shatterdome roof into the freezing Tokyo Bay if he can’t see past Oikawa’s lies. Someone who pushed the limits of their every single Jaeger drop in the Pacific Ocean, even on the brink of bloody defeat, wouldn’t possibly back down in a mere volleyball match over something as petty as _little sleep_. Oikawa lies through his teeth, with the curve of a smile. _That’s not why you fucking bailed._

Someone from the Tokyo side chimes in, probably trying to lighten the mood.

“What, too excited to see us, Oikawa?” Hajime doesn’t glance to see who it is, only focusing on Oikawa’s amused expression from the bench. “Or maybe last night you had _too good_ of a time with Iwa—”

“Hey, shut yer trap,” Atsumu cuts in unexpectedly, scowling. He catches Hajime’s eyes and instantly passes something unspoken that Hajime regrets to say they share—a knowledge, a stern truth. “Ya better focus on the game, ‘cause the next point will be ours.”

The whistle resounds once again.

From the sidelines, all through the next points, Oikawa still tries to catch his hitching breath.

They lose the set anyways.

.

Tokyo’s cafeteria is bigger, with higher ceilings and sunlight pouring in through glass panels spaced evenly along the upper walls. It’s the only feature Hajime misses since they got reassigned to the Nagasaki Shatterdome one and a half years ago. They shouldn’t get too attached anyways, since resource-sharing between Japan’s two Shatterdomes happen all the time. Seventeen months spent in Tokyo was enough for Hajime and Oikawa to memorize everything and everyone, hence their non-stop greetings for old friends as the two Shatterdome officers mingle and blend together at the much-awaited lunchtime.

“Sometimes I forget how famous you guys are,” Hanamaki says when they manage to breathe in-between banters, taking refuge in the quieter corner of the cafeteria. Oikawa instantly wiggles his eyebrows at his words.

“My, someone’s jealous,” he says in a way that would earn him a punch if it weren’t for Hanamaki’s god-given self-restraint. “Don’t worry, Makki. I told you you can put ‘Oikawa Tooru’s best friend’ on your dating profile, didn’t I?”

“Oh, he did it, alright,” Matsukawa shows up from nowhere chuckling, handing Hajime and Oikawa a generous-sized cup of warm drinks. “He’s still bitter that girl from K-Watch went to dinner with him to ask for _your_ number, Oikawa.”

“She what?” Hajime repeats, almost choking on his cup, while Matsukawa starts cackling.

While the three of them exploded in laughter, Hanamaki protests, “she could’ve asked fucking Sakusa, you know, her actual _coworker,_ instead of going on a date with a stranger!”

They don’t get to hear more of Hanamaki’s curses. Sipping drinks and still sniggering, Hajime and Oikawa take off a moment later as they spot another familiar face in the crowded cafeteria, then answering to a few more wave of hands and calls for light conversation. They shake hands with their old instructor from the Academy who pays them a visit from Anchorage. Meet with Akaashi, always a welcomed presence, now attached to the hip with Tokyo’s Fightmaster-slash-monster-wing-spiker Bokuto. Fill up their drinks a little bit more, and discreetly looking for Atsumu to spike their cups from his flask.

It’s a special occasion, so the PPDC decides to install a celebratory drink bar—which doesn’t take away the fact that they don’t serve alcohol (what with the TV broadcast and all) and still ration their lunch in the usual trays. So that’s one thing to savor from today, Hajime thinks, and he might as well drink as much juice as he wants. They might even talk to a reporter or two, which would definitely end up in Oikawa’s face plastered on national television and a particularly huge screen on the Shibuya Crossing.

After all, Nagasaki took the third set and won the match in a very close call. Even when Oikawa wasn’t the one to set for their last point, his presence will always take everyone’s breath away. Tendou was right—Oikawa is born ready for stardom, as it seems. His copilot greets everyone with the same charming smile, ever the eloquent speaker. He doesn’t let Hajime corner him alone long enough to bring up his early substitution and pale complexion.

And so Hajime tries to forget it by way of meeting Yachi. The Kaiju scientist was previously stationed in Nagasaki before she got whisked away to Tokyo with Tsukishima after that disastrous drop two months ago. One that took Yamaguchi’s life, no less. Hajime and Oikawa had been away on a joint drop with the Hong Kong Strike Group off the coast of Shanghai, and a fresh new Jaeger team from Tokyo was dispatched instead.

“I’m still pissed at Marshal Washijo for transferring you, you know,” Oikawa doesn’t stop ruffling Yachi’s hair even after Hajime flicks his forehead. The petite girl lets out an embarrassed laugh, prying Oikawa’s palm away from her head.

“You know you’re our favorite, Yachi,” Hajime adds, watching as a slight blush creeps onto Yachi’s cheeks. She’s always bad at accepting flattery, even when it’s the truth. “Even Ushijima went to see you off, and that’s something.”

“And Goshiki freaking _cried,_ that big baby,” Oikawa recalls with a laugh, “as long as they’re treating you well, I guess. Which they are, right?”

“They’re all very nice, Oikawa- _san_ ,” Yachi beams, looking very genuine with a wide smile on her lips. “I actually got along pretty well with the new pilots, the ones with Echo Saber. Kageyama- _kun_ ’s especially excited when he found out I am friends with you—”

Hajime facepalms as Oikawa lets out an inhuman screech.

“Oh, no. Nope. We don’t talk about _him_ when I’m around, Yacchan,” Oikawa’s smile is scary wide, and Yachi visibly shrinks from impact. Hajime has to interject to stop her from eventually disappearing into a dot.

“‘S fine. They go way back since middle school. Old pettiness, blah blah blah, boring origin story. It’s more about Oikawa being butthurt, actually,” he gives Oikawa a glare, who sticks his tongue out in childish retaliation. “I’m changing the topic. How’s Tsukishima?”

Contrary to his expectations, Yachi shrinks even more.

“Well, you know him,” a shrug of her shoulders, fingers tucking blond hair behind her ear, a gesture of nervousness. “He tries.”

Yachi has always been a worrier. Her track record of taking care of people in Nagasaki is long and hefty, but everyone knows Tsukishima is one of the top names on that list. Nobody really knew the whole story, but people naturally assume the Marshal asked her to come with Tsukishima to Tokyo, help him get away from trauma and recover from loss. The other part, well, she’s an excellent Kaiju researcher. The move had left half of the whole Nagasaki crew sniffling on Nagasaki’s helipad back in September, bidding farewell to Yachi instead of the grieving pilot.

Tsukishima, on the other hand, usually takes care of himself too well to need other people’s assistance. Hajime and Oikawa know both he and Yamaguchi, being stationed together on Nagasaki. The younger pair of pilots only had 19 months of jockeying together before a bloodbath strikes when they fought with a Category-III. Ushijima can relate to that, Hajime supposes, knowing the Marshal’s right-hand man talked privately to Tsukishima a couple of times before his departure. He himself had stayed with Tsukishima one time, long past midnight on the Jaeger Bay, tried to get him back to his room instead of watching the remnants of his Jaeger wrecked beyond restoration.

Hajime can’t possibly imagine the pain, losing a copilot. Much later into lunchtime, his eye catches the lean figure of Tsukishima across the bustling cafeteria, sitting with Kuroo Tetsurou. The dark-haired pilot also went through a similar loss just a month before Tsukishima, having his copilot fall into a comatose. Somewhere in this vast Shatterdome, Kozume Kenma lies deep in slumber, yet to wake up.

Loss, grief, and pain should be familiar components already in the life of a Jaeger pilot. Hajime knows this, and he has been preparing himself of any possibility since they watched tons of Jaeger drop recordings in the Academy, losses included. They were driven past the point of numbness by seeing iron hulls damaged, pilots ripped away from the Conn-Pod by the merciless claws of a Kaiju, explosions and debris and severed limbs floating in saltwater while still dressed in a drivesuit. Pilots go through painful deaths in the hands of underwater monsters.

He knows the risk of being a pilot and throwing your life away to save the world, yet he can’t wrap his head around the idea of loss. The only thing he treasures in this temporary world is standing right across the room, unbelievably bright, a celestial star. Oikawa is laughing over a cup of liquor-spiked apple juice, absorbing the energy of the crowd flocking to him like a natural force. A magnet. The epicenter of a quake.

Hajime can hear Atsumu’s voice from his side followed by the enthusiastic chimes of Hinata, Tokyo’s newest Ranger. Something about the excitement in Hinata’s voice tells Hajime the boy is learning to Drift better, fight better. He gushes on and on, asking about Atsumu’s painful injury that led him to quit piloting, to Kageyama’s stubborn thoughts in the Drift, to Hajime’s own legendary drop back in 2017.

“I’ve always thought it was awesome, Iwaizumi- _san,_ the way you drove Sigma to go _BAAAM_ and _POOOW_ and _WOOOSH_ fell the Kaiju into the Bay! I watched the recording hundreds, no, thousands of times. I made stupid Kageyama watch it too but the dumbass apparently already memorized every bit of Oikawa- _san_ ’s technique, so…”

“You make it sound like a movie, Hinata,” Hajime responds gently, a hand on his cold cup, this time filled with something like a fruit cooler. Atsumu scoffed, opened up his metallic flask, pours a splash of something strong-smelling into Hajime’s cup despite his protest.

“Time to stop being humble, Hajime- _kun,_ ” he screws his flask back closed, hiding it from Hinata’s curious stare. “Can’t deny your drop with Tooru- _kun_ set an international record. Forty-six minutes, imagine that.”

Hajime shrugs. “Only did what we had to.”

It was a solo drop in a very risky mission, Kaiju already breaching the Miracle Mile past ten miles offshore, and the nation’s capital was crowded with nine million panicking souls. They fought right in front of Yokohama’s coastline, just a few miles outside the Aqua-Line expressway, before plummeting the Kaiju into the waters and blasting its torso with a plasmacaster. What blew them into fame was mostly the fact that it was their very first drop, brewing new hope for humanity’s rise through their emergence. A pair of pilot geniuses, news headlines said, before plastering their faces on every existing billboard.

“I’ve only dropped twice, but I kinda get what Atsumu- _san_ told me,” Hinata sipped his water, then bobbing his head up and down while he swallows, “you have to drop without fear. To not think about dying.”

Now it’s Atsumu’s turn to shrug sheepishly, gazing at Hinata with a slightly proud look. Hajime stares at the Fightmaster all the while, remembering how the Miya twins got decommissioned just a month after Hajime’s move to Nagasaki. It was a neural overload that stopped short just before rendering the twins lifeless but deeming them forever unfit to enter another Jaeger. Hajime wonders if Atsumu misses fighting in the drivesuit; wonders if becoming Fightmaster is his own way to cope with the hunger for combat.

“That’s the only way to fight sane,” there is a certain kind of sorrow as Atsumu runs his eyes across the cafeteria, presumably trying to find his brother’s figure somewhere. To fight without fear of dying, Hajime presumes, would be the one philosophy that the twins lived by when they protected the Kyushu coastline. Only focusing on today’s breath, today’s battle, today’s Kaiju, and the millions of souls they would save.

“Right, Hajime- _kun_?”

Atsumu’s nudge and Hinata’s expectant gaze are enough to get Hajime thinking, before he finally replies, “I suppose so,” he runs a finger along the mouth of his cup, catching drops of cold water before they fall, “it’s depressing, but pilots tend to forget they have their own lives to save.”

It’s logical. It’s what helps you fight to the death. To not hold back, hang to the edge, teetering even on the brink of defeat.

He doesn’t understand it, but things happen in a millisecond like the ghost of their previous Drifts, as Hajime’s eyes dart across the lively sun-bathed cafeteria and finding Oikawa once again amidst it all.

He is near the drink bar, surrounded by Goshiki, Sugawara, Osamu, and a few other faces Hajime doesn’t bother to place in his mind as they blur out of focus and disappear out of sight. Oikawa is laughing still, the ends of his eyes crinkling, memories of his short breath on the previous match threatening to fade. He looks so vibrant, so strong, ever so healthy. Hajime wants to forget about the red streaking down Oikawa’s nose and dripping off his chin, because how could it happen? Why would a brilliance this rare has cancer rooting deep down his flesh? How could illness spread within a man who slaughters Kaijus with a maneuver of his arms?

Then it dawns on Hajime how much time they wasted just not talking, not bringing it up, avoiding each other and mentions of the Drift as if there’s nothing tugging their minds together all along. As if their mental link vanishes overnight, like they can’t read each other’s thoughts, like they don’t dress in each other’s habits every single day. As if Hajime doesn’t pick up half of his quirks from Oikawa and the other way around.

Oikawa suddenly sweeps his gaze along the room, settles on Hajime’s line of sight, and almost immediately smiles at him. Something squeezes Hajime’s chest deep inside, and he manages a poor semblance of a smile right back, watching as Oikawa returns to the conversation with a bigger laugh.

_Isn’t silence a futile labor by now?_

What Tsukishima, Kuroo, and Ushijima went through, losing a partner like that, is out of Hajime’s comprehension. He can’t even begin to think how to cope, or even to imagine not to fight alongside Oikawa. To not Drift with him, no sight of him Hajime sees the first thing in the morning.

Oikawa is sick. _He is sick._ He’s been sick for a while now, and Hajime does nothing. _Nothing._

Hinata might be calling for him back in reality while Atsumu puts a hand on his shoulder to snap Hajime back to the present. His alcoholic something-like-a-fruit-cooler lays untouched, condensation on his fingers. The cafeteria is still alive with noise, Bokuto is yelling something in the distance with Hoshiumi, Yachi laughs at the far table with Tsukishima and Kuroo, and Oikawa is still radiant in the crowd, sun-bathed, clad in light.

Nausea and guilt hit Hajime like a tidal wave, and he has to excuse himself from the table.

.

If there is a deeper, emptier void than his thought, Hajime would gladly dive off and jump inside. He finds nothing but regret and guilt and gut-wrenching pain in his own mind. Everything is pitch black, even when he opens his eyes. There is nothing but darkness in their room back in Nagasaki as the digital clock flashes a scarlet 01:00. Silence has wrapped itself over both of them, once again lying in their own beds since two hours ago, neither one indicating slumber. Oikawa is facing the wall, and Hajime the same across the room.

They are both tired from the match this morning—that alone is enough to explain why they only sparred with Atsumu for an extra two hours after dinner. That too, Hajime supposes, might explain the lack of conversation as they entered their rooms to wash up and brush their teeth. The fatigue can also take responsibility for their shared silence as they killed time, Oikawa listening to bubblegummy music and Hajime idly going through re-runs of an 80s _Gojira_ , before switching off the lights.

Then, inside his head, it’s Atsumu’s wise wisdom to stop fearing death. Then it’s Tsukishima’s hollow eyes, and Kuroo’s empty chuckle and the permanent dog tag Ushijima always wears underneath his military uniform. Then it’s images of Oikawa smiling under Tokyo’s ceiling, bubbling laughter over drinks and friends.

Then it’s the nosebleeds, and Hajime wants to stop running for real.

Oikawa might look as if he’s fast asleep, but Hajime knows a slight disruption is all he needs to nudge the man awake. Before he can think twice, he already kicks off his blanket and moves noiselessly across their room, facing Oikawa’s back. His copilot lets out a soft groan when his bed dips on the side from Hajime’s body weight. He might be just drifting to sleep; Hajime doesn’t care to find out. Oikawa might be too tired from today’s event as well, but the raging rush in Hajime’s chest might disappear as morning comes, and the reckless voices in the back of his mind won’t stay longer.

One, two quiet steps into the edge. Three, four tiptoes before jumping into the void. A vast nothingness. Hajime won’t remember the feeling of falling, because there’s no turning back once the words spill out of his mouth.

Oikawa is wide awake as Hajime puts a gentle palm on his forehead, brushing away his hair, finding his eyes amidst the dark. He is silent, a waiting presence, ever so patient. Even so, Hajime has a lump in his throat, and the air gets thin, and the grenade on his tongue is set to burst in seconds.

Oikawa calls his name. Hajime doesn’t hear it as he is saying, “we should stop doing this.”

It comes fainter than he wants, weaker. He can’t afford to be delicate, not when everything cracks beyond salvation.

Oikawa stares at him right back in the low light. “Stop what,” he doesn’t pose it as a question, voice heavy with hesitation.

“Anything that makes it worse for you,” Hajime has difficulty saying it because this shatters something within him and inside Oikawa too. He feels Oikawa freezing under his touch as he continues, “we should’ve talked about this sooner, Oikawa. We’ve wasted so many days, two fucking weeks, I can’t believe I didn’t…”

“Iwa- _chan_ ,” Oikawa interjects with a firmer voice, seemingly jerking more awake with realization. He grabs Hajime’s wrist and holds his palm in front of his chest as he tries to sit up. It takes a few moments before Oikawa speaks again, and his voice is now full of doubt. Even in the dimness Hajime can make out the curve of his eyebrows. “Are you saying we should stop jockeying?”

A glance and a millisecond are what it takes for Oikawa to read his mind.

“They’re going to decommission you if they find out anyway,” Hajime is aware of how close they are, of how warm Oikawa’s breath feels on his face, as well as how it reeks of disbelief. Oikawa is still holding his palm, seemingly without thinking. The grip on Hajime’s hand tightens.

“Then they won’t find out,” Oikawa whispers in a tone he’d define as reassuring, even letting slip a small chuckle in between, “we can still pilot, go on until the next health check and they won’t have to know.”

Hajime hates the indifference in Oikawa’s answer. He feels anger boiling to the tips of his toes, and fights with all his might not to pull his hand away.

“What?” is the only thing he manages to croak.

“I can still fight,” Oikawa has a hand on his shoulder now, a casual touch Hajime usually leans into without thinking, “it’s not like I’m paralyzed—”

“Are you out of your goddamned mind?”

The grenade bursts. Hajime pushes through.

“I swear, Shittykawa, out of all times to be stupid…” his heart is racing, and he struggles with the words. What to say first, to untangle the mess in his chest? “You’re bleeding, for god’s sake! You have cancer! _Fuck!”_ their hands fall away with a jerk and Hajime tries to breathe, looking down on Oikawa’s sheets. “How do you expect me to be fine with you burning inside a nuclear reactor?”

He couldn’t possibly let it happen any longer. Oikawa stares at him in defiance, voice rising.

“So what, you’re gonna tell the Marshal?” it sounds like a provocation. Fire in his eyes, burning, blazing _._ “Let him know it’s killing me to be in Jaeger when we can literally get slaughtered anytime we don’t make a kill?”

“That’s not the same thing,” Hajime frowned, anger pooling in his stomach.

“How is it not?” Hajime can tell there’s a cynical laugh about to break in his speech. Oikawa trudges on mercilessly, even as Hajime puts his head in his hands, raking fingers through his hair in frustration. Oikawa is ruthless that way. “Isn’t this the whole point of jockeying? Knowing you can die anytime to save the whole fucking planet?”

This, Hajime thinks, is unfair. He memorizes all the ways Oikawa can be selfish, but this is beyond cruel.

“Answer me, Iwa- _chan_. I don’t see any difference,” Oikawa’s words dare him to retaliate, as if already crowned a winner. His breath is hot on the crown of Hajime’s head. The finality in his tone is ruthless. “Tell me we aren’t dying anyway, locked up in a drivesuit.”

Hajime despises everything about it.

“You asshole,” his voice cracks, which he doesn’t bother to hide. Head raised, he stares at Oikawa straight, letting poison seep through his teeth. “I can’t get into a Jaeger thinking how it burns you and leaves you bleeding every fucking night, Oikawa.”

There’s something in Oikawa’s eyes, something like shock. There are no more thoughts in Hajime’s brain except the pain in his chest, throat, all over his body, pounding in his torso threatening to burst open his veins. Hajime can’t attribute Oikawa’s silence to anything, except maybe how his own cheek is damp, dripping something from his chin. In front of him, Oikawa still looks dazed.

“But I,” Oikawa starts, fails, repeats, “I can still… I’m _fine_ , Iwa- _chan,_ ” he tries on a smile. A hollow one, with no light. Hajime doesn’t process it, doesn’t process anything at all even when he finally notices Oikawa’s thumb on his cheek, brushing away the wetness with warmth on his fingertips. Oikawa cups his face with one hand, still wearing that god-awful smile. _Wipe it off your face,_ Hajime wants to say, _it’s so fucking ugly._ He can only try to breathe. Breathing in Oikawa’s breath. Breathing in Oikawa. They are so close, closer than they have ever been in weeks.

“I still want to fight,” it’s lower than a murmur. Desperation worn like armor, as if it isn’t pathetic enough. Oikawa and his endless confidence. “I can still pilot. I still want to pilot. I don’t want to be here only for three years, Iwa- _chan._ ” _I want three hundred. Three thousand. A millennia._

_I don’t want to go down like this._

It all comes down to Oikawa’s own denial, after all. Hajime should’ve known, should’ve remembered the way Oikawa’s headstrong determination lands them out of their mundane life and into a Jaeger. Recalls how Oikawa promised their parents that they won’t fight for nothing, how he parades his trust for Hajime like a trophy, how he straight out combatted Ushijima with sheer stubbornness in order to make his own way to the Conn-Pod. After all, who else drives himself to the edge of destruction? The only tragedy is to see Oikawa’s sacrifices end in the hands of sickness. Oikawa’s voice breaks, keeps breaking, as he takes a trembling breath and puts a hand to his own face, to the bridge of his nose, raking his hair out of his eyes, eyebrows stitched together in a slope.

“You selfish bastard,” Hajime’s throat is closing up. He reaches up blindly to swipe at his own cheek. “You think I won’t cry for you, don’t you? Fuck you.”

Oikawa sniffles, forehead leans forward, touching Hajime’s. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize.”

A drop of something damned, wet all over the sheets. Wet on the palms of their hands, on their cheeks, on the space between them on the bed.

“I’m sorry I got sick, Iwa- _chan._ ”

“Oikawa, don’t fucking—”

“I’m not done with this,” Oikawa sobs, “I don’t want to. I’m not done.”

_We’re meant for at least another thousand years._

Nothing could crush Hajime’s heart more than this. After you tear his shield and break his walls, it all boils down to Oikawa’s childhood dream of forever becoming a hero.

Heroes don’t die from maladies, after all. By monsters, at the very least.

Hajime places his fingers on Oikawa’s cheek, combing the hair behind his ear with a tenderness beyond his own comprehension.

“This can’t be it, Iwa- _chan,_ ” it slices deep, leaving a gaping wound. “This can’t be—”

Before Oikawa can continue, Hajime tilts his chin up and kisses him hard.

Their lips meet with what feels like the ignition of a great fire. Hajime lets himself crash into Oikawa, feels Oikawa whimper into his mouth as he tries hard to drown them both to the edge of remembrance itself. They should forget, he thinks, as he kisses Oikawa with all that he has, curves into him like part of the same skin, runs his tongue along Oikawa’s lower lips. Oikawa slings his arms around Hajime’s neck, licking into his mouth, all warmth and comfort resting themselves upon Hajime like a blessing.

It’s the most pathetic kind of lovemaking, Hajime might think back one day. All saltwater and hot breaths mingling like misery, burying the painful pangs in his chest by the reminder that Oikawa is still breathing, a supernova under his palms, an explosive force ready to burn. Hajime tilts his head while kissing Oikawa slower, pushing him down gently on the bed, feeling the dip of his waist under his shirt. The heat is searing.

He breathes into Oikawa’s neck, drawing a moan. Scorching hot. Presses his lips on a trail down Oikawa’s bare chest. The fingers on the back of Hajime’s head, on his nape, is scalding him. Burning. The flame blazes much, much longer, as Oikawa keens beneath him, pleads something on his ears, incoherent whispers drowned by tears. They are messy; this wretched feeling is meant to dissipate as they tangle in each other’s limbs, not linger in the bottom of his stomach like unending guilt. Even so, he opens and envelops Oikawa with his entire being, kisses him mindlessly, fucks him senseless, to the end of coherence.

This, he says aloud in his mind, this is real.

Oikawa is here. He is still here.

That’s all that matters.

.

Hajime dreams of their first drop into the Pacific.

At the edge of winter in 2017, the ocean was calm. If not for the distant evacuation siren and chopper blades slashing the air, the horizon off Tokyo Bay could almost pass as peaceful save for the outline of a Kaiju entering past Japan’s Miracle Mile. It was a Category-II code-named Jorogumo, eight-legged and gruesome. The Kaiju Watch should have had sounded an alarm, alerted the brand-new Shatterdome to dispatch a Jaeger and keep the monster from breaching the ten-mile safe zone, but the PPDC was filled with too much dread to start pointing fingers. No time to waste. Sigma Cerulean’s first battle was a pessimistic one, where handicap trumped hope.

Nothing existed except for Jorogumo’s harrowing cries, the line of Yokohama’s coast, and the traffic jam on the expressway behind them. Jumphawk fighter planes were hovering ready for backup, but Oikawa was undaunted and Hajime was filled with rage, and that was all the fuel they needed to fight. Their Jaeger lighted up beneath them, moved with grace as they lifted their arms and brought it down to smash the Kaiju’s throat, divided the shallow waters with a heavy leap of titanium legs. She burned with all her nuclear glory, gleaming blue tainted with a bit of red, in full control by their shared minds.

Inside the drivesuit Hajime jabbed and pummeled his fists into the nothingness of the Conn-Pod, feeling his knuckles connect with the tender, pulsing flesh of a monster. He moved as one with Oikawa, and they pushed the thrashing Kaiju under the waters, charged the plasmacaster on Sigma’s right arm, blew Jorogumo’s head off to oblivion.

Sigma Cerulean stood alone in the middle of the Tokyo Bay, Kaiju carcass floating, pooling a neon blue from its bleeding torso. That was the image spread beneath all the international headlines for months—of two boys from Miyagi slaying a dragon.

Three hours after their victory, after a hefty debrief session and massive celebration with their whole crew for an unbelievably majestic drop catapulting them to instant glory, Oikawa kissed Hajime for the first time behind their door.

Hajime was too wide-eyed to respond, a deer in the headlights, had completely forgotten the elephant in their room buried months deep as Oikawa shoved all pretense aside and let himself fall apart in Hajime’s arms. His lips were tender and warm, capsizing Hajime’s expectations, realizing this didn’t even come close to what he imagined kissing Oikawa would feel like. It was chaste, closed-mouthed, experimental. When they broke apart Oikawa was trembling, his fingers alongside Hajime’s jaw in tremors, and Hajime had to grasp them firmly to soothe him.

“I was so scared,” Oikawa whispered above Hajime’s lips then, fear seeping through his teeth like smoke, voice quaking and breaking and weak. “Iwa- _chan._ You have no idea. I thought… I thought we’d be dead,” familiar eyes flitted up, finding Hajime’s, desperate and vulnerable. “I thought our first drop would be our last, and…”

“I was in your head,” Hajime cut gently, fingertips against his eyebrow and temple before cupping his jaw, “I know.”

“I don’t want to lose you on our first mission,” Oikawa blurted, idly cradling Hajime’s face on his palms, breath still catching and gaze wavering. They were standing just inside their room, Hajime’s back pushed against the door. The lights were still off.

No stars in Oikawa’s eyes as Hajime stared at them searchingly. “So it’s okay if it’s our tenth?”

After a long, hard stare at Hajime, Oikawa let out a feeble chuckle at last. “That’s not what I meant,” he smiled just a little, before shaking his head. “Dumbass Iwa- _chan_.”

He looked so beautiful and blindingly bright, a major force blowing Hajime out of orbit, so disorienting, so maddening, that Hajime wanted nothing but to kiss him again. And so he did, and he kept doing it, and again and again and again.

And then again, as they were suddenly on his bed, tumbling headfirst over the covers still clad in their sweaty T-shirts, dog-tags clinking against each other in a symphony of tinkles. And then maybe again, as Oikawa hurriedly tossed his pants aside, pulling at Hajime’s belt, palming the hardness on his crotch with incoherent urgency.

Hajime thought of nothing else but how they had been holding out too long, even when their feelings had been bubbling up the surface on the verge of boiling over. It was only right for the apocalypse to come upon them like rain, a doomsday of emotions, a tidal wave of longing and love. Hajime held nothing back as he did in the Drift, somehow aching when Oikawa received him whole, scars and all. He was too tarnished, too cluttered, and yet he knew Oikawa wanted nothing but him, nothing but Hajime; ever since they set foot on the Academy only to become copilots, even since they were only children waiting to grow up.

Hajime knew nothing, anyway, aside from Oikawa. The only thing in the world he would die for.

The Drift showed him, reconfirmed to him, how Oikawa always thought that to die together would be his only way to go. Hajime was fine with that. He didn’t care about anything else as long as they’re together. Oikawa’s wish became his prayer, a desire to burn with all the monsters he slew, standing on top of the world. While Hajime, with less ambition and more heart, had only wanted Oikawa to be content.

What he wanted didn’t matter.

Hajime had their fingers intertwined by the side of Oikawa’s head, his other hand stroking them with haste, graceless and fast. Blinding pleasure shot up his spine, pulsing through his body in waves, and Oikawa moaned as he came not long after. Then what lingered between them was slow, careless kisses, exchanged in the dimness of their room on Hajime’s narrow bed, melding fatigue and tenderness together.

Oikawa brushed his lips on Hajime’s eyelid, palm on his cheek, then stroking the back of his head. They were only a hair’s breadth apart, noses touching, always a kiss away. Hajime felt his throat closing as the sight in front of him was breathtaking, and then he realized he had wished to be allowed this view every single day.

He wanted them to grow old together, maybe. If they get the chance.

To hold hands, even as old men.

.

At twenty-five, Oikawa is still a sight to behold as he lies naked on his bed, bare-chested and flush with red.

They are wrapped in crumpled bedsheets, slick with sweat, panting with the last bits of arousal and pleasure. Oikawa had cried his name out loud as Hajime pushed his entire length inside him, setting them both on fire, striking them full-force with blinding sensation. Their ceiling is dark, the clock ticking towards daybreak, and they lie there as if waiting for sunrise.

He thinks he’s imagining it at first, but he’s not; Oikawa is calling him, low voice heavy with want.

“Hajime.”

He turns his head towards Oikawa, just slightly so before their noses touch, inquisitively staring and raising an eyebrow. Oikawa says nothing but runs his fingers through the crown of Hajime’s head, pulling gently at his short-cropped hair, finding his eyes among the shadows.

They aren’t old men yet. Time passed, but it’s only almost been three years since their run, since the first Kaiju they slew, since the first time they slept together. And yet Hajime sees it, the finish line; it lingers not far ahead, waiting to be overrun.

“We’ve always wanted this, don’t we?” Oikawa is spread on his back, side by side with Hajime, “I want this. And you want this too, I know you do.”

It doesn’t need to be said, what Oikawa is referring to. Oikawa tears his eyes off him, looks up at the ceiling instead, voice slightly trembling yet again. He draws a shaky breath, and Hajime stares at his profile outlined by the faint light from their bedside. When Oikawa doesn’t continue, Hajime pushes himself up, leaning on an elbow to close the distance between them.

“What? Tell me,” he asks, face hovering close above Oikawa’s, “look at me.”

Even though Hajime doesn’t need to hear it to understand, he wants Oikawa to voice it out loud. Oikawa, with all his might, stares him straight in the eye.

“Fight to the death,” escapes his lips like a whisper, a curse, a prophecy came true, “slay dragons together.”

On the night of their first drop, Oikawa had kissed him first. They had dropped in a Jaeger seven more times since then within the span of thirty-three months, and tonight it was Hajime who started the fire. He traces Oikawa’s jaw with the tip of his thumb, running the length of his chin, raising it to the edge of his mouth. The face he knows so well. The welcoming presence in the Drift, perpetually there. The place in which Hajime lingers aimlessly, only to savor each moment. The person he wants a second chance at life with, like in crappy romance movies played in retirement homes, maybe watched by two aging men simply growing old.

Hajime murmurs as a reply, tender and hushed.

“We did all that already, Tooru.”

Oikawa, dazed, lets out a shaky laugh. A cry threatening to break once more, the preamble of tears. “We did, didn’t we.” He doesn’t stop staring at Hajime as he raises a palm to Hajime’s cheek, cradling his face. “Fuck, we did.”

“Yeah,” without thinking, Hajime leans down to kiss Oikawa’s sad curve of a smile, long and endless and hard, “we did.”

.

Hajime loses sight of where Oikawa ends and he begins. Along with the Drift, their sense of self vanishes, evaporating to thin air, dreams and desires fusing into one. Melding memories, down to every bit of delight and torment, sharing every strand of their being down to the core.

.

_(I think it’s gonna be fine, you know. Giving your life away and all, inside a nuclear machine._

_We’re gonna be together anyway, Hajime. Ride to die.)_

_._

After their first kill in February 2017, they went on two months later to meet Japan’s newest pilots, the Miya twins, who spoke in Kansai _-ben_ and couldn’t seem to stop arguing in and out of the Conn-Pod. Just a month after that, they got acquainted with the fresh blood who will take over Tacit Ronin, a grand Mark-I Jaeger with the history of housing multiple pilot deaths inside its hull: lean and snarky Kuroo Tetsurou with a much calmer Kozume Kenma. Two months after that Sigma Cerulean would drop together with Tacit Ronin for Vladivostok’s strike group, guarding Russia’s Miracle Mile.

A year after Vladivostok they would get relocated once more to Nagasaki, meeting resident pilots Tsukishima Kei and his cheerful copilot Yamaguchi Tadashi, as well as having the honor of befriending Nagasaki’s favorite officer, Yachi Hitoka. It was there that they would once again meet Ushijima, already Marshal Washijo’s right-hand man, and a month after that the Miya twins would get decommissioned due to a nerve-destroying injury.

The next time February came around, suddenly it’s 2019, with Hajime and Oikawa’s very own middle school junior Kageyama Tobio becoming a star pilot in Tokyo. He got assigned to Japan’s very first Mark-IV with another rookie cadet Hinata Shoyo, and Hajime remembered how Oikawa would get extremely jealous whenever international news shone upon Echo Saber’s sleek body and its young, fresh-off-the-boat pilots. It had been a while since he last saw Oikawa thrown off his facade, and it was ridiculously endearing.

And now, in November of the same year, Oikawa had said, _let me pilot for one more drop. That’s it._

“Give it my all one more time, you know? Go all out,” Oikawa says from his bed that night, already snug and wrapped in his blanket as Hajime turns off the light. He moves closer to the wall, making room for Hajime who pulls the covers to sidle up against him. “I’d be satisfied then, after our very last run.”

Hajime trusts him, never otherwise. To grant him the chance for one last ride is probably the best thing he can give, because he’s not even sure if he has anything else left. Oikawa knows the first thing on Hajime’s mind is to come clean to the Marshal before their next scheduled health check, but this plea he asks with all his heart, and Hajime can’t refuse. Oikawa promises to talk to Marshal Washijo, given that they survive the next drop. Give his body one last time to the Pacific.

“You won’t,” Hajime responds decisively, slinging an arm on top of Oikawa’s waist under the too-thin sheets. _Be satisfied,_ he means, but Oikawa knows what he wants to say.

“I will,” Oikawa’s voice is raised, stubborn. He refuses to back down as he scoots closer to bury his face in Hajime’s neck. “It will be grander than our Tokyo Bay drop. You’ll see.” It feels like they are talking about their own planned suicide. A drop in which they give their all, after which there would be nothing left to save anyway. Oikawa’s breath is warm, a furnace near Hajime’s thumping chest, and he rests his chin against the crown of Oikawa’s head.

“I don’t think Tokyo Bay was a legend after all, you know,” Hajime mutters into Oikawa’s hair, “Takes a lot to beat Pentecost’s solo.”

“Coyote Tango was a Jaeger piloted by god himself, Iwa- _chan._ Shame on you to think we’re on par with him, with your shitty maneuvers.”

“Same Jaeger, same Conn-Pod, same shit. I’m only stooping down to your level.”

“I think you mean _reaching up_ to a level as high-caliber as the top candidate for Ushiwaka’s copilot~”

“The top candidate who ditched Ushijima for a shitty maneuverer like me? Sure.”

“That’s unfair, Iwa- _chan_! Take that back!”

As Hajime laughs, he thinks, _there’s no difference past this point._ Radiation would have boiled past its peak, cancer growing, head still aching. On the other hand, the world settles down and lapses around them in pools of calm waves, as if saying, _you’re on your orbit again._ Familiar banters, casual musings, talks about their past drops, the breakfast menu, kicking Atsumu’s ass in the Kwoon. Curling in each other’s arms every night. Stumbling into the shower together in mornings, late for assembly.

The only difference now is that Hajime gets to wipe the blood above Oikawa’s mouth when he wakes up to a nosebleed. Putting him to sleep, too, drowning the splitting headaches that come at times. Oikawa holds him tighter every night that Hajime gets more worried, so much that he stops having separate schedules for all of his pilot trainings and goes with Oikawa everywhere.

“I see yer back together, dumb and dumber,” Miya Osamu says one day when he’s coincidentally at Nagasaki, suited up for diplomacy with a loosened tie as he sees them walk past. “‘Tsumu’s been worried you guys are getting a divorce, what with your messy spars in the Kwoon.” He continues with a wink, completely ignoring Oikawa’s protests declaring Hajime is Dumber, which Hajime promptly responds to by leaving him alone yelling _I’M THE DUMB ONE, RIGHT_ without any context in the middle of the bustling cafeteria.

Atsumu must have told Osamu everything after that encounter, since the latter drops by to their room that night to personally hand an extra tin of Metharocin, an apologetic look on his face.

“Everything is going to be okay, Iwaizumi,” he says encouragingly to a bewildered Hajime at the door, as Oikawa is still in the shower.

Matsukawa says something along the same line some days after, followed by an interestingly quiet Hanamaki who keeps giving Oikawa his juice at lunches.

“God’s sake, Makki, if you’re going to keep giving me something, it might as well be your firstborn son,” Oikawa laughs during the sixth consecutive time he receives a juice box, “I’d be drowning in sugar if you keep this up.”

He downs the whole carton anyway, chews the little plastic straw like he always does since kindergarten. Hanamaki doesn’t respond much, which is out of his character—it doesn’t need a genius to figure out what gave it away, and Hajime tries to lock Matsukawa’s gaze all lunch to find no gaps in his defense. He doesn’t know how many of their crew already figures out Oikawa’s declining health. He doesn’t want to know yet, not now.

Then again, it’s not like Hajime has a choice.

Sigma Cerulean has a simulation test two weeks after the friendship volleyball match. The usual routine—you have to oil the gears when you don’t use it often, and Sigma’s machine needs to be ready at all times in case a Kaiju lands unannounced. Nobody doubts the strength of their Drift, and except on Hajime and Oikawa’s request, their crew don’t schedule Drifting practices anymore—but today’s test assesses the hardwares of their man-made monster, and they need to be connected with the Jaeger anyway.

So the next thing Hajime knows is being locked and connected inside their drivesuit, pewter blue and kind, slightly aware of Oikawa on his right ride as they wait for the helmets to load. _Usual routine_ , he chants in his head, and patiently closes his eyes while focusing on Kita’s calm voice from the LOCCENT as the chief reads out their alignment statistics to Marshal Washijo.

_All components stable. Preparing for the Drift. Initiating the neural handshake on your cue, Marshal._

This is a drill their whole crew had gone over a hundred times; they all know it by heart. Every PPDC-certified officer understands what goes on in a simulation, what procedures underlie their every move, every flick of a switch, every numbers relayed on monitor screens. Hajime himself has memorized the whole program like an imprint etched on his brain, white-hot and ever-present. It’s just Drifting. The only thing he and Oikawa can do better than the whole Japanese pilot teams, even than the Northern Pacific region. Their connection is undefeated and constant. From his right, Oikawa flashes him a cheeky grin and a peace sign by his drivesuit-clad fingers as they wait for the Drift countdown.

Out of absolutely nowhere, Hajime suddenly feels nausea churning in his guts. It’s too abrupt to be prepared for it as Hajime is now queasy and sick to the stomach, and Oikawa seems to catch his shock, because he now has his mouth slightly open inside his helmet. Hajime realigns, blinks, suppresses the confusing discomfort. He doesn’t have any idea what comes over him, why it’s happening, why he wants to throw up so bad. Before he can signal Oikawa to let him know he’s okay, the countdown reaches three, then one, and the Drift is initiated.

A familiar, mind-melding warmth that expands throughout the edges of their shared headspace. The feeling of coming home. Nothing out of place, as Hajime lets him dissolve with every bit of their childhood memories, every unnamed emotion down to their anxieties, and lets them become one with Sigma’s heart once again. This time, however, Hajime opens his eyes and sees not the Conn-Pod once more, not Kita’s announcement that the neural handshake is strong and holding, but he’s lying down on a bed.

_Their_ bed in the Tokyo Shatterdome in 2017. There’s Oikawa, naked and beautiful under the sheets, and he has that stupid grin, and his hand is on Hajime’s cheek. He’s saying, _I can’t wait for our next drop._

Then, as Hajime feels the sharp ache in his chest, the background melts and transforms into the Conn-Pod, into Sigma’s intimate blue. It’s not sleek like the one they’re in, but half the hull is wrecked, somewhere a gas is leaking, and water is pooling on the soles of their feet. A Kaiju carcass floats out on the ocean, laying lifeless on the Pacific. There’s Oikawa by his side, almost two years younger, the side of his helmet caved in with blood bathing the left side. He’s beaming despite being beaten and wounded, still standing in their drivesuit, saying, _third kill, Iwa-_ chan. _We bagged him._

Faintly, somewhere in the background, Hajime hears someone calling his name. _Hajime. Hajime, come back._

He ignores it immediately because there’s Oikawa again, once more laying sideways on a bed, but in a smaller and messier room—Hajime’s dorm in university. He’s sleeping right beside him, eyelashes fanning prettily, and the rise and fall of his shoulder is steady. The dip of his waist is frightening, and in this vision, Hajime already slings an arm on top of it, knowing full well that Oikawa is unaware in his slumber. They are on the cusp of nineteen here, and Hajime can’t seem to remember whether the red streaking down Oikawa’s nostrils are real. Had there always been nosebleeds? How far back did it start, really? Or maybe this is just the diluted, incomprehensible mess of his mind, tumbling and falling on top of each other?

_Hajime, snap out of it. Stop chasing the rabbits. Listen to my voice._

The red drips down to the pillow, and suddenly Hajime knows this was just last week when he had to wake Oikawa up with a wet cloth and usher him to the bathroom. Oikawa had laughed seeing Hajime’s own disheveled bed hair, but upon looking at his reflection in the mirror, he broke into a cry. Unstoppable sobs flooded Hajime’s shoulder until daybreak.

Oikawa also sobs uncontrollably when they are six years old this time, but Hajime isn’t hugging him. There’s a scrape on his knee, pink and ugly, from Oikawa’s earlier tumble to the ground. Hajime didn’t, still doesn’t understand why the first thing he does upon seeing Oikawa’s tears is cradle his knee, head bent, scolds him with a firm _stop crying, stupid,_ and licks his gaping, bloody wound. _Spit makes it hurt less, that’s why my mom kisses me when I get hurt. More spit in a lick than a kiss, right, Tooru?_

That might be stupid for all they know. Still, it works. Oikawa laughs, and Hajime never forgets the metallic taste of his blood.

_Hajime, please listen to me. Don’t latch on. Do you hear me?_

When will Oikawa stop bleeding, when all they ever do is stuff him into a Jaeger over and over again? And all these images, these recollections, the thoughts and remembrance, all that Hajime has of the years they spent together—where will they go, when there is no Oikawa? To grow old together, hold hands as old men, might be simply an empty dream when Hajime stands still and complacent, letting Oikawa back in a Jaeger. He’s the one wasting their time.

Almost a month had passed, and here Hajime remains, keeping watch as Oikawa burned.

_This isn’t real. Let go of the memory, Hajime._

Suddenly the floor gives way, the blare of the system resounds all around him, and Hajime wakes up in his drivesuit. Red keeps flashing as sirens echo in the Conn-Pod, booming in its cold voice to announce _neural handshake overloaded, Drift terminated_ over and over again, never-ending, punching Hajime again in his guts. He ejects his helmet at once, and before he could take in another detail of the chaos surrounding them, he throws up on the cockpit floor.

Gagging, gasping, and fighting to keep his heartbeat from hammering in his ears, Hajime’s knee buckles, but Oikawa is there to catch him. He is a firm presence behind him, pulling his helmet out of the way, and he keeps saying _are you okay Iwa-_ chan _, look at me, it’s alright,_ while Hajime registers nothing but Oikawa’s face. He feels his whole body writhing, pleading to get out of the suit and take Oikawa away from the nuclear reactor of the most beautiful machine they piloted together, but Oikawa presses their heads close together and wipes something wet drenching Hajime’s cheek.

The last thing Hajime remembers from their ruined Drift is saying “I’m sorry,” over and over. “I’m sorry,” as Oikawa shushes him and holds him close in their soft blue drivesuit. _I’m sorry, I’m sorry,_ even when he doesn’t even know what he is sorry for, all messed up and crying himself dry in the middle of the Conn-Pod of their Jaeger. He keeps apologizing while outside, back in LOCCENT mission control, all across railings of Nagasaki’s grand Jaeger Bay, the whole Shatterdome watches in shock and silence as they see one of Japan’s best pilot teams failed their Drift for the very first time.

.

There’s no escaping Marshal Washijo’s wrath as he paces slowly across his quarters, hand behind his back, contemplative and silent while staring outside his window overlooking the coast. It reminds Hajime of his own father, that night in Miyagi when he told him they wanted to enlist. While his father’s silence was solemn and kind, only allowing a moment’s hesitation before putting down his newspaper and granting him permission, the Marshal’s is stern and unrelenting. It’s a silence that punishes the two of them, standing side by side with their head down, staring at the Marshal’s back.

He expresses his disappointment for staying silent about the cancer.

“By withholding this information, you could have compromised the success of your next drop. This is extremely selfish of you, Ranger. Do you really believe the safety of Japan lies in your hands only? Can you guarantee you won’t collapse in your next drop?”

Weighing by how much their country relies on Sigma’s winning streak, their last Drift simulation certainly proved otherwise. Oikawa keeps his eyes down, head hanging low, receiving every chiding with silence. The list goes on and on; how they would’ve jeopardized international security, gambling away their chance of winning which is certainly thinner now that Oikawa is not primed for victory, up to putting the Jaeger at stake for heavier damage. It all pans out from financing Jaeger restorations to International cooperation, which will taint Japan’s name should they send a support team manned by a sick pilot.

Hajime flinches when the Marshal continues with, “I don’t expect Iwaizumi to pilot solo if you go down, Oikawa, unless he wants to get burnt as well.”

Oikawa pipes up impatiently. “With all due respect, sir, I don’t mean to—”

“It’s not important what you mean,” the Marshal interrupts firmly, glancing at them from his position before looking out on the coast again, “when it comes to losing my best men, I don’t intend to risk anything else that could take their lives.”

The bow they give Marshal Washijo before dismissal is long and deep, and Hajime pretends he doesn’t catch Oikawa’s tear on the floor.

.

Oikawa is honorably discharged from the PPDC on a sunny morning at the beginning of December. There are no award ceremonies, per Oikawa’s request—that could come later when they hold a press conference announcing his decommissioning, hiding the true reason behind a gleaming National Defense Service medal and a ribbon for his lapel. It’s for the best, Hajime agrees, since Oikawa’s international popularity could possibly flood the Shatterdome with flowers and gifts from avid fans. The news will hunt this down for sure, not to mention gossips and assumptions for reasons behind his discharge.

“Let them run around for a bit,” Oikawa chuckles, “they’ll meet me in the hospital sooner or later anyway.”

He pulls up an article showing another headline of him knocking up a girl and leaving the corps to get married. The media already catches wind of it somehow, even when there’s no official statement from the PPDC. Hajime scoffs, already seeing eleven different variations of the gossip, none of them mentioning the possibility of Oikawa already sleeping with his copilot for almost three years. It’s amusing, really. Especially seeing different Hollywood actresses being named as his ‘spicy scandal’.

The PPDC gives Oikawa three days to pack up, a generous time. Oikawa finishes it in one. The other two, well, everybody has a good idea what it’s really for.

Hajime spends a whole day sparring in the Kwoon after the Marshal asks him if he wants to continue his service. Two days to think is very rare considering the pace of how they run things, and a very benevolent privilege extended to him as a fellow decommissioned pilot. Oikawa’s health check requires him to start treatment immediately in Tokyo, fully-funded by the UN, while Hajime is also banned from piloting due to further radiation risk but can resume his duties being a higher-ranking officer. He’s fully recommended to accompany Tokyo’s Marshal Ukai, becoming the counterpart of Nagasaki’s Ushijima. Considering the chances, it’s not an offer to pass.

“You should take it,” Oikawa says to him for the fifth time from his bed as he’s sorting through the photos he took down from their wall, “they’re offering you Tokyo for one reason and one reason only, you know.” He winks, then promptly shields himself from the damp towel Hajime hurls.

“Yeah. Marshal Ukai’s newly retired aide. What else,” not Oikawa’s admission to the Cancer Institute Hospital, for sure. What Hajime would give to be able to accompany him at all times. The thought lingers like a certainty, like Hajime should have given his answer in a heartbeat. Oikawa thinks that to not consider the chance would be disrespecting Hajime’s own abilities. _You should at least give it a thought._

The thing is, Oikawa’s whole family is in Miyagi. The PPDC would probably fly his mother here to live with Oikawa in the apartment they bought him, but even Hajime knows it’s not Oikawa’s ideal preference. He’d probably think there’s no cancer too vicious worth disturbing his parent’s peaceful days in their hometown.

“Iwa- _chan_! You’re making a mess of my photos,” Oikawa pouts as he shrugs the towel away from his shoulder and re-sorts the stack. It’s pictures of him and Hajime among snapshots of various moments and Miyagi’s landscapes. He’s done with packing, while Hajime still teeters on a rope wondering whether to follow his footsteps.

Atsumu tells him the choice is all his, even though a chance like this doesn’t come twice. Hajime doesn’t need to hear which chance is he referring to: commanding the Shatterdome only second to the Marshal himself, or spending the rest of his healthy days with Oikawa. Matsukawa asks him what he really wants as they munch their cold dinner sandwich on railings overlooking the Jaeger Bay, taking a good last look of Sigma, and Hajime knows it’s a rhetorical question thrown as a formality just so Matsukawa is sure. Hanamaki dodges the topic and refuses to acknowledge that he’s going to part with Hajime either way, denying it so furiously it’s endearing.

Ushijima speaks in a straight no-nonsense tone as he nods at Hajime in the hallways. _It would be an honor working with you, Iwaizumi, but please take your time to make your choice._

Oikawa is the only person vocally pushing Hajime to stay in the Corps, ironically so.

Oikawa is silent, Hajime observes, as he sifts through the pictures. He’s taking a good look at a particular shot of him at twenty-two, with a brand-new Sigma bomber jacket and nervous grin. Oikawa had shorter hair back then, once shaven in a military buzz-cut and only grown out after winning the Marshal’s favor from their first drop. Now he is quiet, contemplative, sporting a melancholic smile. The pictures get stacked at the bottom, and then there is a shot of them back from high school, in volleyball jerseys; and then from their entrance ceremony to the Academy, and red-faced in a bar during their day off with Matsukawa and Hanamaki, and more, and more, and more.

Their talk of Oikawa’s decommissioning wasn’t more than a short exchange and a much longer hug. It was foreshadowed from the day Hajime asked him to tell the Marshal and then sealed when he broke their Drift, essentially breaking the secret. Oikawa never even protested or got mad that he will never get his final drop. He just stays silent, packs his things, urges Hajime to work for the Marshal.

_We can meet in your days off,_ Oikawa reasoned, _I’ll mostly be in the hospital anyway._

“We took this one on Golden Week, remember,” Oikawa muses, beaming at one particular picture of him and Hajime behind a dining table loaded with food, one where their mothers held a joint lunch for their families at Hajime’s house. It was during their first year as pilots, rewarded from the Tokyo Bay drop. “You told Takeru off because he kept talking about the fight.”

“Because your mom was close to bawling, idiot,” Hajime replies gruffly, sitting beside him on the bed, careful not to crinkle his photos. “I’m a better son than you are, obviously.” Oikawa’s nephew was clearly impressed, back then, judging how he managed to recount every single of Sigma’s moves with precision.

“It’s not my fault that it feels so good to be admired~” Oikawa hums, pushing the picture to the bottom of the stack, “unlike your lonely siblingless life, I happen to have a small nephew to please.”

“Sure, at the cost of your mother’s tears. I was close to hurling you to Hell.” Hajime says lightly, without sting, as he picks up a random picture of Tokyo’s horizon.

Oikawa chuckles from his side. “Pretty sure I’ll end up there, anyway.”

If there’s something Hajime understands about Oikawa after decades, it’s that his larger-than-life personality powders over every single insecurity he has. He puts a lid on them so they don’t spill over, pushes them far and deep so nobody can take a peek. Once in a while, he lets them out, shows them with the most painful cheerfulness. Hajime hates it to his bones.

Usually, anyway.

He can never put a name on what they have. It used to be very simple: _he’s my copilot. We grew up together since we were five._ He’s not Hajime’s boyfriend, because it’s more than that. A lover would be too sentimental, while a partner might be the closest thing to encapsulate the years spanning between them. Nevertheless, Hajime thinks, there’s no name that could do Oikawa justice. Not when Hajime evidently blew his last chance of fulfilling a promise, giving back the whole ocean for Oikawa, yet Oikawa hates nobody but himself for the cancer gnawing at his insides.

Hajime wants to give him somebody to blame, so Oikawa doesn’t beat himself up.

“I’m sorry, Oikawa.”

Hajime lets it hang between them as he thumbs the edge of the photo on his lap, idly flipping it before returning it to the stack without thinking. Oikawa doesn’t immediately reply, but he seems to collect himself and lets out a tiny laugh as he gathers all the pictures now pointlessly sorted by date. He flicks his gaze at Hajime just slightly, experimentally, as Hajime stares straight at him.

“The way you look, it’s like you want to murder me, Iwa- _chan_ ,” Oikawa laughs for real this time, forehead slightly scrunched at Hajime’s scowl, “what are you talking about?”

He won’t understand how Hajime was torn between saving him from burning and giving him one last ride. Hajime tries to respect how Oikawa wants to leave his legacy; if anything, he is the one who understands most how Oikawa wants to stand on top of the world. _Our last drop is forever going to be the one where I saw you bleeding, and I don’t know if that’s how you want to leave. If that’s_ _how we want to end this._ It’s Hajime’s fault, then, how he wrecked their last attempt at a Drift. How he can’t stop despising himself for letting Oikawa enter a Jaeger again when his innards are already aflame. How he tries to settle his mind and think, _maybe there’s no difference at this point anyway._ Only certain death.

Ride and die together, that’s what Oikawa said when Hajime had wanted them to hold hands as old men.

“I’m just sorry,” he says quietly, words slipping from him like smoke.

_There’s nothing to be done anyway, Iwa_ -chan, Oikawa will reply with that same grim smile. The Oikawa in front of him looks serene, calmer. Very much unlike Oikawa at twenty-two, excited and nervous at the gates of the Academy; at eighteen, sweaty and grinning after moving half a dozen boxes into his college dorm room; at fourteen, wearing his middle school team jersey and a wide smile, receiving a Best Setter award. This Oikawa had matured through the sight of blood, rising in front of monsters and slaughtering them cold.

“We had our run, Iwa- _chan_ ,” Oikawa says calmly, putting the pictures on top of their small desk, jamming them between other belongings waiting to be packed away, “it was a great one _._ ”

He remembers Oikawa arguing in his bedroom in Miyagi, before they enlist: _the world is ending, Iwa-_ chan, _what’s a career worth then?_

It’s exactly how Hajime knows he doesn’t need his ranks or a position next to Marshal Ukai in Tokyo. He doesn’t need his uniform, any medal on his lapel, or the authority to command a whole Shatterdome to go to war. He doesn’t know what he is waiting for; probably the thought that turning the offer down immediately would break his comrades’ hearts. Maybe Hajime doesn’t need two days to decide, because he already decided months, _years_ ago, that he goes where Oikawa is.

Maybe everyone already knew Hajime would come down to this decision, except for Hajime.

Without a doubt, nobody is surprised when Hajime offers his resignation from the PPDC two days after Oikawa gets decommissioned. The news spread like wildfire within the Shatterdome, prompting them to put together a joint awards ceremony just a few days later along with an official press release. It is a nice affair, one where they stand under the flash of a dozen news cameras, smiling as they shake hands with the Marshal with a gleaming medal. One where they face a large crowd and bow, deep and long, among flowers from the whole nation.

It is where they mingle with their crew, friends, comrades, and fellow soldiers after the formalities end, one where they shake hands and hug, where they take pictures and answer a couple of interviews. They get to keep their bomber jackets, of course, insignia forever on their chest. Hanamaki is crying, Matsukawa keeps his silent smile, while Atsumu hugs Oikawa like there’s no tomorrow and Ushijima claps Hajime on the shoulder with a force strong enough to knock someone out.

There is endless applause, endless goodbyes as they go around, while the speakers blare with a hastily-made compilation of their drops, shot to the vast Shatterdome walls. There are plans made for their next day off, jokes that the Shatterdome’s rations will always taste better than hospital food, promises to always wear Sigma’s badge on their collar.

There are their closest friends on the helipad, bidding them farewell, as they take off for Tokyo.

The headlines will hit the news in a few hours. Their new empty apartment will be waiting in the nicer, quieter part of Tokyo this afternoon. The boxes sent from home will be stacked by the front door tonight, and they’d video call their parents back in Miyagi from the kitchen island. The cancer treatments will start the day after tomorrow. They’d have to shop for some furniture and probably stock the fridge because god help them, the PPDC isn’t MUJI, and they won’t be surprised if their apartment comes with bunk beds.

For now, though, the only thing that matters in Hajime’s mind is how Oikawa’s side profile lights up at the sight of the sun, how the spectrum falls and trickles by the jut of his cheekbone, drowning him in a sea of white.

It’s a brilliant sight.

.

Tokyo during the spring offers a slight chill in the air, a tinge of the past winter, slowly swept by the oncoming bloom of petals. The last frost melts away and leaves puddles on the concrete like the endings of a drizzle, seeping away to be replaced by a warmer day. Last night really did rain, just a light shower, which leaves the morning a bit cool and crisp. Hajime is wide awake as he leans on the bumper of his car, an old Toyota his father drove from Miyagi two weeks after their move, only to be left outside their apartment in Tamagawa.

_You know we’re getting a car from the PPDC in April, right,_ Hajime had rolled his eyes over the phone later that night, and was met with his father’s low chuckle that he never heard since high school.

_Exactly. So you’re getting the Toyota,_ his father said matter-of-factly, disguising his affection as rough as always, _tell them to send the new one over to Miyagi._

Hajime, with a small laugh of disbelief, told a confused Oikawa that his father didn’t want them to take the subway to the hospital every morning.

“He’s just making up an excuse for us to drive home,” and fetch their brand-new car from Sendai, no less. A road trip planned over his old man’s stubbornness, strangely similar to Oikawa’s.

The stubborn Oikawa who insists to make early morning appointments with the hospital, just so he can spend the rest of the day at ease. He jogs along the Tama River at five in the morning every day, refusing to slack off just because they’re not in the Shatterdome anymore. Hajime gets dragged into the new routine quite easily, returning together to their apartment at six to have breakfast and fetch black coffee from the neighborhood cafe, sometimes stopping at the mart to get groceries. They do their laundry, vacuum the floor, pass countless hours just catching up on movies or trying new recipes. Sometimes they run out of things to do.

Life goes in an unexpected lag when you’re a civilian, as if they’re breathing in a timeline hours too slow from the ever-busy Shatterdome. Life stops indefinitely even in downtown Tokyo, after they have the rest of their lives taken care of by the PPDC, after they’ve broken free from responsibilities to train and fight in the middle of the Pacific. What’s left are the countless doctor appointments, the scheduled psychological checks, the time-to-time visits from the corps just to see if they’re doing alright.

They meet Sugawara once a month for psych counsels in their apartment, and he brings various news and rumors from the dome. Some Jaegers are being replaced, a slate of new Rangers come and go, crews still get rotated from Nagasaki, and some pilots are reportedly sleeping together, _but you didn’t hear this from me, okay, Iwaizumi?_ Sugawara, that gossip.

They receive packages of assorted snacks from Akaashi and the other Tokyo guys (late housewarming present, they said), video call with Matsukawa and Hanamaki every couple of weeks, and talk over dinner in small _izakayas_ with the Miya twins when they get days off.

“Miss the military life, boys?” Atsumu had said while munching his _shisamo_ the last time they all met back in February, as if he wasn’t tired from a bullet-train ride all the way from Nagasaki. Oikawa only wiggled his brows playfully while prompting Atsumu to raise his glass, while Osamu chuckled lightly and Hajime asked for a refill.

It is March 2020 and Hajime sips on his hot _sencha,_ ten minutes into his wait in the Cancer Institute Hospital parking lot, somewhere in Koto, next to the Tokyo Bay. Some distance away a pair of electric doors open and Oikawa exits the building, huffing into the collar of his jacket to fight away the slight chill, and as he catches sight of Hajime, he breaks into a small run.

“Look both ways before crossing, dumbass,” Hajime greets above the mouth of his cup, only to be met with Oikawa’s laugh as he draws near. “All good?” he asks, and Oikawa shrugs.

“Same old,” he replies with a smile, motioning with his head to get in the car.

It’s only ten in the morning on a Sunday and Hajime already grunts three times, asking Oikawa to put on his seatbelt, warning him not to gulp his _sencha_ because it’s scalding hot and Hajime learned it the hard way, then scolding Oikawa to move and stop blocking the outside mirror. Oikawa laughed gleefully, mussing Hajime’s hair as he tries to reverse the car out of their parking spot, effectively earning another curse from Hajime.

“Come on, Iwa- _chan,_ you piloted a two-thousand-ton Jaeger on the first try, but still shit at driving stick after three months,” he giggles from the passenger seat, hand swatted away by an irritated Hajime looking back at the rear.

“Shut up or I’ll drop you in the emergency room with a hemorrhage,” Hajime clicks his tongue, slamming the wheel quite awkwardly, before finally managing to get them out on the street.

It’s like living an early retirement, which isn’t wrong. They replace their routines with more domestic, meager tasks; finding essence in restocking the fridge or taking care of houseplants. They don’t really do _nothing_ , of course—technically, two international superstars living together in Tokyo still attract flocks of fans, one way or another. They come to universities and institutions to give speeches, become ambassadors for brands or causes, even getting offers for commercials and talk shows. Their neighbors drop homecooked dinners almost every week, especially the kind _obaa-chan_ from the floor below. Some children from their apartment complex knock on their doors and ask for autographs on T-shirts. Housewives they meet on grocery runs bow very deeply, thanking them for fighting Kaiju; the same goes for some people who recognize them on the street.

“Hanamaki texted to let me know he just sent a box of face masks,” Hajime says while switching lanes on the main street, “told me he just saw another article of us eating lunch at that ramen joint, that bastard, what’s the point of covering our faces if we’re gonna eat anyway.”

Oikawa bursts out laughing. “Bet he’s not over that dating app disaster,” one where his date asks for Oikawa’s number instead. Hajime bets there are more than a dozen nurses who fight over their turn to take Oikawa’s temperature in the hospital. “You going to Sodai tomorrow, to meet with the team?”

It’s a side hobby Hajime wants to pursue. Guest-coaching a collegiate volleyball team from Waseda University, after the coach figured that the best amateur team in Japan can benefit from having an ex-Jaeger pilot and vicious wing spiker oversee their practices.

“They actually watch our Shatterdome matches, you know,” he raises an eyebrow, meeting Oikawa’s gaze from the rearview mirror. “Loop them over to study our style before championships and stuff. Some of the boys really gush over your sets.”

“Can’t blame them,” Oikawa grins, earning a flick on his ear just seconds later. “Ow, Iwa- _chan,_ that hurts!”

“Don’t get cocky,” Hajime smirks, “Atsumu’s got quite a big fanbase over there as well.”

“Speaking of that bastard, he just called when I was at the hospital,” Oikawa is still rubbing his ears quite unconsciously as he reaches to turn on the car radio, “next friendship match’s in May. Nagasaki’s host. We’re coming, right?”

“Yeah. Catch the plane or train with the Tokyo boys, I suppose.”

The song on the radio is an 80s punk-rock from the times of their fathers, from a band that Hajime knows too well to miss. The Blue Heart’s _Train-Train_ is in the middle of its repeating refrain, the vocalist’s voice blasting through the speakers like a looping mantra. Hajime follows the lyrics out of habit as he taps his fingers on the wheel, waiting for the traffic light: _we may not become saints, but we should still live our lives…_

Oikawa is musing, rambling his way through a monologue, talking about Goshiki’s increasingly accurate serves and Sakusa’s freaky wrists, how he wants to make sure the Nagasaki boys nail their serves to rival his own. He trudges on while chuckling, seemingly talking about getting revenge by winning in straight sets, or something. Hajime doesn’t really pay attention, only looking at Oikawa as Komoto Hiroto sings on through the stereo.

_Train train, barrel forward to the ends of the earth, barrel forward to the bitter end…_

They keep slaying monsters, always will. This time they don’t need to divide the ocean, charge their plasmacasters, suit up in pewter, and get drenched in blue blood; this time the battle is silent but merciless, and they get to fight without being burnt alive. The dragon is breathing, rooting its claws in Oikawa’s body, a world threatening to end. Hajime thinks about what he would give to let them grow old together, hold hands even as old men.

There will still be headaches and nosebleeds, Oikawa doubling over the sink soaked in crimson, hair falling on their pillows. There will still be nights where Hajime has to hold him to sleep or shake him awake or force medicine down his throat.

At least right now Oikawa is bright, all stars, a supernova in front of his eyes, shattering the sun. He is beautiful, forever the center of gravity in Hajime’s life. Although they would probably never enter the Drift again, Hajime can feel that the tug between their minds is ever-present, always profound.

When Hajime keeps remembering their dreams made in blue even when Oikawa is ablaze with red, that’s how he knows the apocalypse will end.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you kindly for reading. any feedback or comments will be very appreciated. have a great day!
> 
> i'm [@okkotsoo](https://twitter.com/okkotsoo) on twitter.
> 
> this fic should be read with its accompaniment [phantom grief, steel hearts](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29760645), telling Kuroo & Tsukishima's story from the other Shatterdome.


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